ZOE’S DREAM SHOPPING SPREE
Four-year-old fills 14 carts with toys
A Windsor girl who lives with a rare bone marrow illness lived out every child’s dream Wednesday — running through a toy store with three minutes to grab as many playthings as she could.
Four-year-old Zoe Dudzianiec left Toys ‘R’ Us with 14 carts filled with LOL Dolls, Hatchimals, and plenty of other fun toys as part of the Starlight Foundation’s “3-minute Dash.” “It was really nice to see her happy for once,” said Zoe’s mom Heidi Dudzianiec. “Her dream came true.”
Less than 24 hours after she was born, Zoe was diagnosed with Diamond Blackfan anemia, a rare bone marrow failure that requires her to undergo blood transfusions every seven to 10 days since her body does not produce enough red blood cells.
She has endured about 160 transfusions in her four years, which will continue until she receives a bone-marrow transplant.
“It’s very important for people to get swabbed because they could
save somebody else’s life,” Heidi said. “They swab your cheek, you can even do it on the internet and they send you the kit in the mail and you mail it back and you can match anybody.”
Ghyslain Gagne vice president, children’s services at Starlight Canada, also known as Captain Starlight helped to lead Zoe through the store, clad in his superhero costume. “This little child was born and won this lottery that
nobody wants to win,” he said. “It’s so rare this disease she’s got, 800 kids in the world have that.”
“Today she won that thing only 10 kids in Canada got. It will never compensate, but we want her to be as normal or better — to live that moment and be a child.”
When asked which toys she was looking to snag Zoe said “all of them.”
Heidi said they’ve been making weekly trips to Toys ‘R’ Us since they found out Zoe won the dash.
“Zoe’s been coming in here, she’s making lists and maps, all kinds of stuff,” Heidi said. It paid off. Zoe had her parents, two-year-old brother and her godparents helping to rush around the aisles and grab as many toys as possible. In fact, her 14 carts broke a record.
This year, the Starlight Foundation has held 10 of these events at Toys ‘R’ Us stores across the country. In addition to the dash, the foundation partners with the toy store for the annual Star campaign to help raise money for programs that support children with serious illnesses. Last year the program raised $1.5 million.
Locally, a $2,000 grant will be also given to Windsor Regional Hospital’s child life pediatric program to help enhance its services and the pediatric departments in other areas of the hospital.
“Being in the toy industry and working with kids every single day there’s nothing more important to us than being able to give back like this,” said Frank Juhasz, vice president of marketing and omni channel innovation at Toys ‘R’ Us Canada.
“A toy store is supposed to be magical, and it is 365 days a year, but this is an opportunity for us to make it particularly magical for in this case, Zoe.”