A 4-year-old Washington boy’s love for his younger sister is helping him learn about helping others.
Blake Wainwright’s actions (raising money to help a children’s hospital)may inspire others to “pay it forward.”
In January 2012, Blake’s sister Brynn underwent cranial reconstruction at UNC Children’s Hospital to correct her craniosynostosis. That condition is when the sutures of a newborn’s skull have closed/fused too early. Brynn was 6 months old when the cranioplasty fixed the abnormality. She was hospitalized for five days.
“This was such a trying time on our family, having a baby with this type of intense surgery and recovery, also with my son just being 2 at the time,” wrote Brynn’s mother, Carrie Wainwright, in an email.
Brynn is now 19 months old.
“Since she got home, we wanted to involve him with her ‘journey’ and recovery, and in turn teach him a life lesson: to give back and help others. Since February 2012, Blake has had a piggy bank that reads ‘UNC Children’s Hospital.’ Whenever he  was given change or a little money for doing a good deed, he chose to put most of it in this piggy bank,” Wainwright said about her son. “Every year about his birthday (Feb 10), we would donate this money to the children’s hospital that took such wonderful care of his sister. This year was the 1st year we donated this. Blake had some other contributions from family and close friends and was able to donate $425 on Sat, Feb 16, 2013. He’s truly experiencing how humbling it can be to give back to others and help.
Wainwright said her son would continue to save money in his piggy bank and contribute annually to UNC Children’s Hospital.
“It was just of a more personal family donation at first,” Carrie Wainwright said Thursday afternoon. “Once we had talked about that we were actually donate within a couple of weeks, we actually had some close friends who wanted to contribute as well. We haven’t reached out to the community.”
Asked what he does with the money he saves reaches a substantial sum, Blake replied, “I give to the Children’s Hospital.”
Carrie Wainwright said the hospital uses the money to meet needs of a specific department or buys toys, books and games for children who are patients there.