Honoring A Special Aunt

Kristen Campbell recently took it upon herself to raise funds for The Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation.

While recovering from foot surgery last summer, the 11-year-old from Newtown created small rosebud angels and hand-decorated stationery notecards, which she then turned around and offered for sale to family and friends. She recently completed her sales, and sent a check for $420 to the Komen Foundation to honor the memory of her late aunt, Sherry O’Marra.

Ms O’Marra had died on January 4, 2005, from an aggressive form of breast cancer. She was the sister of Kristen’s father, Robert Campbell.

Kristen and her mother, Marybeth Campbell, spent a lot of time together visiting Ms O’Marra. Kristen was often with her mother as she changed the dressings and administered medication to her aunt, and the family all traveled to Disney World for Thanksgiving 2004, honoring one of Ms O’Marra’s last wishes.

“[Kristen] worked with the puzzles that Sherry loved and emulated Sherry in her love of dance and performance,” Mrs Campbell wrote in a letter to the Connecticut affiliate of The Komen Foundation.

In 2005, on the anniversary of Sherry O’Marra’s death, Kristen had her waistlong hair cut for Locks of Love.

Last year while recovering from surgery to repair a congenital defect to her foot that caused her pain when she danced or even walked, Kristen independently came up with the idea of raising money for breast cancer research. While confined to a wheelchair, she spent hours decorating the notecards, and leaned over the arm of her wheelchair to assemble the pink and white roses, trim the leaves that would form wings, and sort through silk roses for crowns and curly strands of brown and white for hair on her angels. She finished by lacing pink ribbons through the tiny angels so that they could float from tree branches or brass hooks, lamp shades or chandeliers.

By early January, she was ready to send a check to the Komen Foundation office in Hartford.

In a note to Kristen, Connecticut Komen Foundation affiliate director Cathy Bloomberg thanked the young Newtown resident, and told her, “When you lose someone so dear to you, and you can take the pain and turn it into something that benefits others, it not only helps ease the grief, but teaches you a valuable lesson.”

The money, the note continued, will support efforts in Connecticut to eradicate breast cancer as a life-threatening disease.