10-year-old Houston boy doing his part to raise awareness for cancer research
HOUSTON - If you've ever wanted to 'make a difference' but doubted the power of just one voice. Maybe this week's Positively Houston and 10-year-old Hunter Wilson will give you a change of heart.
Hunter is a little guy who's doing big things after cancer catapulted his family into a world his parents never thought they would be in.
Hunter first came to my attention in a collage of pictures showing him wearing an array of t-shirts, shirts that aren't meant to make a fashion statement but rather factual statements about childhood cancer.
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"I've just been wearing them to school every day and telling them, all my friends and teachers about them,” says Hunter who is telling anyone who'll listen, not only about his little brother who survived cancer in his bladder.
"Our youngest son Colt had Rhabdomyosarcoma. He was diagnosed when he was three,” explains Colt and Hunter's mom Cortni Wilson.
Hunter, the big brother, is also telling the stories of children the Wilson family met on Colt's journey to becoming cancer-free.
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The kids are called Hunter's Heroes and the 10-year-old even has a Facebook page to tell the world about kiddos like Bradley who was just 2 years old when he died of cancer. "We usually get a paper and then we write their name down and then my mom will tell me the story and then I'll hold up the paper like this and we'll take a picture,” Hunter explains.
Beside each picture is a summary of how cancer changed or took a young life, like 10-year-old Cameron. "We went through treatment with Cam and he had the same cancer my son had and never made it out of treatment. That one just sticks a little bit more for me,” says Cortni while choking back tears.
With every story, mom helps Hunter tell about kids battling cancer the 10-year-old says he hopes to raise awareness and money for Pediatric Cancer research. So he started mowing lawns. "I've raised over $1,500. I just wanted to do something good for the little boys and girls that are having to go through bad problems".
Unfortunately, Hunter has plenty of t-shirts to wear because as parents pray and put their child's life in the hands of dedicated doctors, they also typically display their feelings on fabric, handing out t-shirts so everyone wearing them can unite against a disease so despicable it even sets its sights on innocent children.
Hunter, however, and his compassion could help crush cancer, one mowed lawn at a time. "I hope the little boys and girls get better soon. I hope my money helps them”. Hunter plans to donate half his earnings to Texas Children's Hospital where his brother was treated and half to St. Jude Hospital which does extensive childhood cancer research.