On November 2, 2001, doctors told Jan Morrison that her six-year-old son had leukemia. "When Dallas was diagnosed, I was eight months pregnant and my world collapsed on me." It wasn't long before she started picking up the pieces. While her son was still in treatment (he finished chemo in June and just started grade four), Morrison formed a fundraising organization called Kids Curing Kids, with a board that includes four children who organize events and choose where the money will go. It was Dallas who came up with their most innovative idea. At school he'd been asked to imitate a famous artist, so he drew a self-portrait in a Picasso style - which his mom proudly hung in her office at the investment firm run by her husband, Bruce. "I brought him to work one day and said, 'Look at your picture. It's so beautiful and everybody comments on it.' And he said, 'Why don't we sell it and get some money to give to kids' cancer?'" The mother of three was soon handing out donated canvases, paints and supplies. Some of the artists were children in hospital, others from local schools. "It was just so much fun working with the kids. My husband said he'd never seen me do a fundraiser with so little stress." At the auction, many of the kids held up their own work as the bidders milled around. "One piece was done by a three-year-old who drew this egg-shaped thing with stick arms and legs, two eyes and a nose. We called it Humpty Dumpty . It sold for $450 - people were fighting over it. It was like something jumped out of that picture and grabbed you by the heart." By the time the show wound up, they had sold 45 pieces and raised more than $15,000. And Dallas's self-portrait? "I absolutely would not sell it that night, and everybody was pretty mad at me. To me, that piece is priceless." Chosen charity: The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society of Canada, Western Region |
