Young Boy Takes $5 Church Gave Him and Makes Nearly $3,000 to Help Cancer Victim
"This went beyond family and friends and into the community. Everyone knew and supported him 100 percent."
(Dayton, Ohio)-9-year-old William Miller of Tremont City, Ohio was one of several youth attending Lawrenceville Church of God who was given $5 with the admonition not to spend it on themselves, but to do something charitable with it and make it grow. William did just that, raising nearly $3,000 to help his 29-year-old cousin, Melissa McLaughlin, who has stage 4 breast cancer for the third time.
First of all, with the help of his parents and grandmother, William had a bake sale. According to a report in the Springfield News-Sun, he kept saying he wanted to make $2,000 even though his parents told him he should shoot for $500.
"We decided to make some candy and sell it to the family, but it just snowballed," said Letha Miller, William Miller's grandmother. "Everybody wanted a part of it. This went beyond family and friends and into the community. Everyone knew and supported him 100 percent."
Then, notes reporter Sarah Jacobson, an aunt sent an e-mail about William Miller's project to some out-of-state-friends, and he started receiving monetary donations from all over the nation.
"It was because he was being observant.... We just thought it was great," said his father, Robert Miller. "You never think your kids are really listening to you talk."
When the money was collected, family and friends gathered around with William and presented Melissa with a small pink and white Igloo lunch cooler filled with bills totaling $2,755.
