A Georgia girl is undergoing difficult and expensive medical treatment. Other little girls and grown ups have a chance to help her.
A Sylvester woman is organizing a beauty pageant in Albany and the money raised will help pay medical bills for a 3-year old who has cancer.
That little girl is Addison Humphries. Her mom says she is rambunctious and full of life. She is undergoing chemotherapy twice a week. But not even the toughest circumstances can wipe away her smile.
Addison Humphries found out this month that she has Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia. Her mom is with her at an Atlanta hospital. She never imagined this would happen.
"You always see kids and you think: 'that poor kid, that poor family.' But you never think you are going to be that poor kid and that poor family," said Addison's mother Staci Gilreath. "It is the roughest thing I've ever had to go through in my life."
She says Addison is a little princess from her head down to her feet. It makes sense that a pageant is being organized to raise money for her.
"Anybody is eligible. It will be a glitz pageant though," said Jamie Griffin, owner of CC Pageants. "We are allowing the spray tans, the makeup, the hair pieces, the whole nine yards."
The excitement and fun of a pageant is exactly the kind of thing Addison enjoys. Her mom says the cancer treatments are tough, but they are all handling it the best they can.
"She is sick the day of chemo and maybe a half of a day the next day," said Gilreath. "Then, she is back, like nothing ever happened. Back to her normal self. She rides a tricycle through children's of Atlanta's hallways at one AM going a hundred miles an hour."
Jamie Griffin owns CC Pageants in Sylvester. She says she knew she wanted to help little Addison the second that she saw her smile in a picture.
"When I first saw pictures of her before she started chemo, I was like: 'a baby, she is three years old, she has her whole life ahead of her.' She hasn't even lived yet. And then they sent me pictures of her," said Griffin.
Fortunately for Addison, her type of cancer has a cure rate of almost 80% in children.
Addison's mom told me that their insurance doesn't cover all of the medical costs. She says each chemotherapy treatment costs $130,000. She gets two a week.
The Pageant is March 25th.
The cost for every contestant in the pageant is $100 or $150 for the supreme package. You can also sponsor contestants. For more information on how to join the pageant, you can contact Griffin at 229-206-3897 or email at ccpageants@yahoo.com.
