RIDGEFIELD, Washington — Students at South Ridge Elementary School in Ridgefield are making personalized notes for other kids.
"We want to teach our kids to have empathy for others. To learn how to bring joy to other people and this is one of the ways that they get to do that," said Principal Jill Neyenhouse.
The project was started by 10-year-old Anthony Moro-Baxter last year. At the time he was in the third grade and had to miss school while in the hospital.
"We found out that Anthony had a condition where his spinal cord was causing nerve damage to his legs. It is a condition that if you find it early enough you could hopefully catch it and repair some damage. That's what we were lucky enough to do," said Anthony's mom Stephanie. "If we had not taken care of it, he probably would've been paralyzed from the waist down."
For two weeks Anthony sat in the hospital recovering from his surgery.
"When I was in the hospital, basically there was no one to play with or anything and it was way boring, like really boring," he said. "I came out after those two weeks, after my surgery was done, and I started getting picked on because all the kids noticed that I was gone for a long time and I had to take special medicine."
"It was one of those times where you sit down with him and go, you can't change your medical condition," Stephanie said, "So you have two options, you can do something about it, or you can kind of let it control your life. He said I want to do something about it."
So, he started the "Hand to Heart Project," a project in which kids write notes for other kids that are in the hospital.
"We ship them out to Randall Children's Hospital and they pass them out to all the kids in the hospital."
At South Ridge, students in Ms. Hunt's class are making their second set of cards. Last year, Anthony collected more than 200 cards for kids and he's still blown away by the creations.
"I saw patterns I've never seen before to make kids happy. I saw hard work to make kids happy," he said.
This year, they've expanded to two other schools in Ridgefield and more than quadrupled their amount.
"I thought we'd get 100 or 150 more cards, but we got like 800 more cards." Anthony said.
When KGW asked Anthony if he'd ever received any cards while he was in the hospital, he gave a solemn answer of "no....no."
It's that 1,000 card difference that will make all the difference of lifting up Anthony's spirits and those kids in the hospital that will get to read their cards.
"My husband and I are really proud. You hope that a child can take their situation and make the best of it, regardless of what that is. He found a way for him to deal with it himself and that's what we needed him to do," Stephanie said.
If you'd like to get involved in Hand to Heart, you can email Stephanie at TheHandToHeartProject@gmail.com or visit their Facebook page.