Central Ohio girl providing comfort to others, one stuffed animal at a time
WILLIAMSPORT, Ohio (WCMH) — A ten-year-old from Central Ohio is being recognized for her many hours of community service. Thanks to her, paramedics now have stuffed animals to give out to children in need.
Two of Mackenzie Walker’s favorite things are going back to her community and stuffed animals. So her mom and her bus driver, who also happens to be a paramedic teamed up with Mackenzie to come up with the platform called ‘Kenzie Comfort Plushies.’
“When I’m sad, the stuffed animals keep me comfortable and make me not sad anymore,” Walker said.
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Walker, an incoming 5th grader at Westfall Elementary school, loves racking up volunteer hours when she’s not hanging out with friends or family.
“I’ve done some at my school, Westfall CARES. We put food in a bag and gave them to people that need it,” Walker said.
Recently, Walker competed at the U.S. Miss National pageant where she represented preteen Miss Ohio and placed in the top ten. In the months leading up to the competition, she created “Kenzie’s Comfort Plushies”.
“I love helping people,” she said. “I wanted to help others by giving them stuffed animals.”
In May, Walker donated over 200 plushies to the Sterling Joint Ambulance District. The idea is that when paramedics respond to incidents where children are involved, they can give them a toy to help comfort them.
“I think it’s invaluable, really. It’s very important just because parents know how to calm their kids better than we do, but they’re not always available to help us in those situations,” paramedic Aaron Rhoades said. “So we give them a little teddy bear or something like that, and we can usually win them over.”
Rhoades, who works with the Sterling Joint Ambulance District, says they usually give the child a choice of which animal they’d prefer. They have a lot of options to choose from because Walker showed up with six bags full of all different kinds of stuffed animals.
“We don’t always have the means to help them the way that we want to. So seeing all these loads of bags that we got, you know, we’re going to be able to help kids for a pretty long while,” Rhoades said.
Walker earned the Presidential Service Award, a distinguished honor from the White House, for her 77 hours of community service.
“I just love helping people, that’s why I tried my best,” Walker said.
Walker says being able to give back means more to her than anything else. This time around, she wants to collect 500 stuffed animals to donate.
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