Star readers, organizations help 10-year-old be a kid again
May 28, 2010
Diane Flacks
SPECIAL TO THE STAR
In July 2009, I interviewed Emilee Cheyenne Catt, a then 9-year old girl whose mother had died suddenly two years before of a fast-moving necrotizing fasciitis infection; whose two younger brothers have autism; and who lives with her grandmother, Marie Fletcher. Fletcher, disabled from arthritis in her spine and hands.
A bright spot in Emilee’s life was attending Horizon Arts Camp, aimed at disadvantaged kids. To get Emilee there each morning, Fletcher had to strap the two boys onto her electric wheelchair while Emilee walked to the bus stop. Emilee’s brother Noah, then 5, was a “runner.” His autism manifested in a flight impulse.
After this story ran, Star readers immediately reached out with offers of help: shopping trips, babysitting, cash. One individual donated enough money to equip Fletcher’s apartment with a door that stays locked, a motion detector, and other security items to help keep Noah home and safe. Readers donated to Horizon Arts Camp, the one place where Emilee was allowed to be a kid and where she garnered the self-esteem to be able to talk to a reporter in the first place. And this month, Dreams Take Flight, a national non-profit organization that provides trips of a lifetime for physically, mentally or socially challenged children sent Emilee on her first plane ride ever — to Walt Disney World for a 20-hour long, fun-filled adventure.
Lisa Phillips, founder of Horizon Arts Camp, saw Emilee off at the airport, picking her up at her apartment at 4:30 a.m. And a good thing, too, because as Emilee was asked to board the plane with the other children, panic overtook her. Phillips ended up getting security clearance to go on the plane with Emilee and then nearly ended up leaving with her. “Boy! Talk about overcoming your fears!” writes Phillips in an email the next day.
“I am actually scared of the teacups ride at the CNE,” explains Emilee as we meet in a Starbucks. She shows me her new Dreams Take Flight backpack, blanket, hat and T-shirt, as coffee patrons can’t help but smile behind their laptops at this 10-year-old’s pure excitement. “I was scared of going on the plane. I was worried it might crash. . . I always see the negative.”
As the plane sat idling in the hanger, unable to take off because Emilee was literally sick with fear, Phillips had to call Emilee’s grandmother to facilitate. Fletcher tells me over the phone that just before Emilee went on the trip, they found a letter from Emilee’s mother that articulated two wishes she had for her children: for them to go to Disney World and to own computers. So, when Emilee was pleading to get off the plane, Fletcher asked her to go to Disney World, for her mom, as a Mother’s Day gift.
“They all forced me to go, and I’m happy that I went now. I don’t think that kids that live around where I live really get the chance to go.” Emilee overcame her teacup ride fear enough to ride the roller coaster, Splash Mountain.
On the way back, Emilee describes toilet paper races down the aisles of the plane. “And the captain got on the mic and said, ‘pillow fight!’. . . I was like, ‘what was I scared of?’”
Emilee’s aunt, Suneeta Bell, 23, emphasizes how important the Star readers’ compassion was for her family, especially Emilee. “Emilee got to go by herself and not worry about her brothers. She has this parental instinct over her brothers. Going to Disney, she was able to forget all that stuff for a while. She didn’t have to look after them. She could just be Emilee.”
Emilee agrees, “I am so so, so overprotective of my brothers. I always worry, ‘What’s going to happen?’”
“She sometimes forgets she’s only 10 and these little boys aren’t her responsibility,” continues Bell, “and that’s why we want her in camp all summer long.”
This summer, Phillips has been able to gather enough funding for camp to run for six weeks, instead of the three weeks Horizon could afford last summer. But there are many kids like Emilee who could use a break, who should be entitled to fun, and not enough funding to help them all.
Emilee also instinctively focuses on other kids, “I want to say to readers that we are really, really thankful. There’s probably more people that are more less fortunate than us — they could use support as well.”
When she grows up, Emilee wants to be a WWF wrestler like her hero, John Cena. She thinks she’ll go by one name only, “Emilee,” and her persona will be a gladiator. She also wants to help people like herself, and to travel all over the world on planes. . . and to meet Cena.
Looking to the future, Emilee smiles shyly and says, “Anything could happen.”
Thanks to Star readers, she has proof that that is true.
For more information about Horizon Arts Camp, visit: www.horizonartscamp.org
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