Valery Huttner
Valery, now nearly 12 months post-transplant, is a year-old child from West Columbia, South Carolina, who was successfully transplanted at Children’s Memorial Hospital in Chicago.
The Huttner family is home and Valery continues to make great progress. Combined with The PEACE Fund grant, their volunteers began raising funds, and have raised more than $11,000 since they began.
The PEACE Fund grant helped spur their volunteers on to do more for her benefit.
Victoria Roberts
Jackie Tate spoke with Chuck (dad) again in late June and noted that Victoria enjoyed a full year as a “normal kid”, and that her success in school is borne out by straight ‘A’ grades in the third grade after only getting part of kindergarten under her belt before all of this started. Chuck noted, “Her blood counts are still really low and have not normalized, but we continue on in our faith. As far as she knows she has been healed. The good news is she hasn't needed blood in over two years and continues to have an unbelievable attitude towards life.
Thanks for asking and please continue to pray for her.” The families volunteers raised nearly $360,000 and have spent less than $22,000 of that total for normal medical and travel expenses as they live three hours from the hospital where she is seen regularly. Victoria’s family began working with COTA before we began websites for every patient, so there is not one here for her.
Ellise Jones
We have not had any real contact with the family, other than to pay expenses on a nearly monthly basis, which is always a good sign. When things do not go well, we will hear a lot from families and that is the point where I know things are not going well. Ellise is now in fifth grade and her volunteers raised nearly $29,000 and they have a balance of nearly $15,000. Ellise’s family began working with us before we began websites for every patient, so there is not one here for her.
Joshua Ray
Joshua (pictured right) is a two-year-old baby from Smithfield, North Carolina who had his life-saving liver transplant at Duke University Medical Center in Durham, North Carolina on September 10, 2007.
His volunteers have stepped up again and have now raised more than $25,000 and his family still has significant bills following his successful transplant.
Sophia Boyer
Sophia was successfully transplanted on Christmas Eve 2006 and was doing well until recent problems this year have caused significant health issues. Additionally, her younger sister, Tatum, was diagnosed with the same disease and will now also require a transplant. Her fundraising concluded last summer, and they raised a little over $34,000, including your gift and our challenge grant.
Following this recent scare, the family’s volunteers began fundraising on a small scale just in case it may be needed in the near future. We are trying to work with them, but have recently been told that they are doing things “on their own” and have decided they no longer need to work with us even though we still have $16,000 remaining to help them out. My intuition is that they need help with expenses that we cannot cover, i.e., missed mortgage payments unrelated to their transplant.
Logan Beirlien-Tyler
Logan is doing very well, but according to his mom, Helen, a recent MRI showed that his brain didn’t form completely (while in the womb) causing gray matter resulting in delays for walking/talking, etc. Doctors say if he doesn’t walk by age 5, he never will. The neurologist has him in physical therapy twice each week, as well as speech therapy and swim therapy. This has nothing to do with the transplant, and in fact, Logan is doing very well from the kidney transplant with no signs of rejection. Logan is now able to attend pre-school, and his mom is able to work part-time again to help the family with living expenses.
Thanks in large part to The PEACE Fund grant, the family and volunteers have raised a total of $10,333.
Nickolas Sheeder
Nickolas’s family moved from Texas to Colorado due to his dad’s work situation. They concluded fundraising with just under $11,000, and are very pleased with their success – thanks in large part to the PEACE Fund.
Incidentally, their lead volunteer told me they were set to do a number of new fundraisers, but mom and dad felt they were ‘covered’ and asked everyone to stop. I actually met with their social worker in New York on a recent trip and she told me the family often speaks with other families at the hospital about how COTA helped them, so they seem to be doing very well and love the services we provide. Nickolas’ family began working with us before we began websites for every patient, so there is not one here for him.
