PORTLAND, Maine (NEWS CENTER Maine) -- A nine year old girl from Portland has taken her love of drawing to a new level.
Sarah Aeedy has had a rough couple of years. Her family moved to Maine from Iraq because of her diagnoses with a cancer called Thalassemia, which effects her blood. The Iraqi hospital that diagnosed Sarah recommended the family get themselves as close to the Dana Farber Cancer Institute in Boston as possible for treatments. It's where she had several months of chemotherapy and radiation, as well as a bone marrow transplant from her younger sister Aswar. An extremely painful procedure for two little girls to go through according to her dad Ahmed Aeedy.
"It was very difficult and we were scared and worried about Aswar. At a certain time we were scared that we might even lose both of them," said Ahmed.
The transplant was a success, but Sarah still had to spend several weeks in the hospital to build her immune system back up. One way she passed the time was by drawing. Her American dream has always revolved around her family one day moving out of their apartment and into a house with a garden. You can see it in her art and so did one of her doctors, who shared Sarah's work with the Help Families Fight Cancer Campaign. Within months, Sarah's drawing was printed onto a HomeGoods reusable shopping bag.
"When I drew that drawing I was not thinking of a plastic bag," said Sarah. "It was just a drawing and when the doctors saw it and she said this is nice and we can do something and then they contacted HomeGoods."
Proceeds from Sarah's bags will support the Jimmy Fund, which fuels cancer care and research at Dana-Farber. Helping adults and kids just like her fighting cancer.