When Madison Johnson of Spring City was planning her 8th birthday party, she told her mom that she did not want birthday presents from an ever-growing list of friends and family. Instead, she wanted to collect gift cards to give to children in Mississippi whose lives were destroyed by Hurricane Katrina.
How does an 8-year old think of such a selfless act of generosity and kindness? She was paying attention when the pastor of their church spoke to the congregation about an upcoming trip to help rebuild the homes of families whose lives were devastated by the hurricane. The pastor, during her Sunday sermons, had been encouraging the congregation to donate gift cards from large discount and home improvement stores in order to give to families who were starting over.
When her big day arrived, Madison decorated a pretzel container to collect donations at her roller-skating party. In true form, after the party was over, Madison said that the best part was in "knowing that her friends had fun while helping kids who lost everything to a really bad flood."
When the church-sponsored work team took off for Mississippi six days later, they left with over $2,400 in gift cards. Such generosity was largely inspired by Madison, who by her own example, moved a congregation - and many others - to action in reaching out to those who are suffering. In fact, Madison's church was recognized for making the largest single donation of gift cards to the people of Camp Victor, Mississippi.
So where does this awesome kid go from here? It seems that when she (and mom) adopted a cat from an area shelter, she read a sign about the shelter's need for dog food. Leave it to this Udderly Awesome Kid to enlist the help of her entire school and Brownie troop to organize a drive to collect pet food for the shelter.
We at Turkey Hill are udderly proud of Madison and take udder enjoyment in recognizing her as the winner of our Udderly Awesome Kid Contest!
