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Student brightens the holiday's for sick kids

Posted at 7:41 PM, Dec 18, 2015
and last updated 2015-12-18 19:41:29-05

Caitlin Perez-Stable is a junior at Avon Lake High School who got into the Christmas spirit months ago.

“Caitlin approached her dad and I actually in the middle of the summer and said she wanted to do a community service project,” her mom Joyce Perez-Stable said.

She solicited her friends and neighbors to donate a variety of art supplies.

“I didn’t just want to donate some money because I want to know exactly what I’m doing and where it’s going” Caitlin said.

Even the local Pizza Hut joined in. They had a competition at the school between all the grades of who could donate the most. And the winner received a pizza party.

“If we can reward them with a pizza and they get it, the kids benefit the most out of it, that’s what we’re here about,” Nicholas Rodak, the District Manager at Pizza Hut said.

And people delivered. Caitlin has collected more than 2,000 coloring books and art supplies.

“I’m really excited and grateful that everybody helped out. And it just shows that we’re not as bad of people as we think, and we definitely have big hearts."

And her goal? Bringing holiday cheer to sick children at University Hospitals Rainbow Babies & Children’s Hospital.

“I read somewhere that coloring is really therapeutic  when you’re in stressful times,“ she said. “And it’s definitely stressful on the holidays for these people that are in the hospital.”

Her thoughtful jester is something her mom says she couldn’t be more proud of.

“It was very meaningful to us that she chose to do something like this and that she picked something that was dear to her heart and really followed through with it,” her mom said.

Caitlin will be delivering the art supplies to patients and their families staying at the Ronald McDonald House on Sunday, just in time for Christmas.  

She also hopes to grow her idea and include more high schools to pitch in next year.