CHANDLER, AZ — Excited tiny children are ready to teach all of us a valuable lesson this holiday season.
On Tuesday, they proudly showed us gifts soon heading to Phoenix Children’s hospital, stuffed animals, legos, scooters, and Barbies to help to put smiles on the faces of children facing unimaginable hardships.
“He loved to give back, sorry,” said Laurie Roach while holding back tears at KinderCare Learning Center in Chandler.
Roach is the Center Director and is leading the toy drive effort in memory of her son Michael.
“He always helped the underdog, even when he was little, he always helped other people, the kid at school that was sitting alone, he was always the one that went to him,” said Laurie.
In 2015, just as the holiday season was getting underway, Laurie’s life changed forever. Michael was diagnosed with infectious mononucleosis, also known as Mono, a seemingly innocuous illness he’d soon recover from.
“When we went to the doctor the day before they said it’s just mono, he’ll be fine, and he seemed better the night before, and then in the morning I found him passed,” said Laurie.
The loss of her 17-year-old son was unbearable for a long time but his spirit and the way he lived motivated her to move forward.
“He was always the type to say mom get up, keep going, he was that type of person,” said Laurie, doing it with an annual charity drive called Hugs from Above.
This year she's taking the opportunity to share Michael’s story and lessons of his kindness with those she teaches. She hopes to inspire them to bring in and donate 100 toys to some very special kids.
“Within the first days of putting it out, we still have two weeks left in our toy drive and we’ve hit our goal,” said Laurie in amazement.
While hitting the goal is great, the healing their generosity provided for Laurie and her family can’t be put into words.
“I’ve overwhelmingly felt loved and that and my son’s memory was going on, it’s been a wonderful, wonderful event,” said Laurie.