Abby's Point of View

On December 3, 2020, Abby's Point of View piece was published by CBC News Ottawa on their website and on social media. She'd been asked to do this piece back in August when we were still in Toronto for Ollie' s stem cell transplant and one of the producers saw the blog post that she wrote at that time sharing how she was feeling about Ollie and COVID. 

She's always wanted to be a writer and writes profound, insightful pieces for one so young. She was thrilled to be asked to do this and even more thrilled later to find out she'd be paid for her piece, so it was not only her first published work, but also her first paycheck ever, too. Stem cell donor, advocate, writer and breadwinner at 12 years old!

The letter that she wrote was accompanied by a video of her reading the letter and photos of our journey to get Ollie well. She worked on the letter for months with the editor/producer and the videographer spent a lot of extra time working on making the video as beautiful and moving as her letter. 

To-date it has been posted on CBC Ottawa's Instagram, Facebook and Twitter accounts, CBC Kids News and was featured in the CBC National News that night, too! Overall it was a tremendous experience for her, although the outpouring of response has been overwhelmingly emotional for her.

Our Member of Parliament and Minister of Infrastructure and Communities shared it and sent Abby a message...

And of course, Alex Munter who is the President and CEO of CHEO shared it, too! 

And Canadian Blood Services shared it to promote stem cell donation, of course!

She got messages from the Prime Minister's staff, Ministers and Members of Parliament, doctors, lawyers, teachers, nurses, authors, national and local journalists and media personalities and so many others across Canada! Family and friends from across the country were so excited to see her on the National!

We are so incredibly proud of her and her bravery in not only giving Ollie stem cells, but also for sharing her donation story with Canada and using it to highlight the importance of masking up and protecting those that are most vulnerable right now.

P.S. - Ollie is still doing great and we'll share an update on him again soon!