Clubhouse

His last Christmas

“Ten days before Christmas 2003, I received a call from a Kiwanian. She asked if something could be done for a 12-year-old boy named Charlie. He had been diagnosed with bone cancer for a year and a half. The expenses had taken his family to the point they were not going to have a Christmas. I called four clubs in the area. They raised US$850 within four days so the family could have a Christmas.

“Charlie died the following August, one week after his mother died.

“Four Kiwanis clubs acted quickly to provide the last Christmas Charlie and his mother ever knew.”—Ray Richardson, Kiwanis Club of Fairmont, West Virginia