Millis girl helps design special socks for kids fighting cancer

MILLIS, Mass. — 8-year-old Maddie Alexander loves to show off her socks. “Kind, helpful caring love strong brave, and smart,” she commented on just some of the words on her socks.

The Millis 3rd grader has been fighting pediatric cancer for five years. Maddie and her family are helping other kids battling cancer by partnering with Resilience Gives’ Socks with Stories: Paying It Forward Initiative. This month, Maddie and more than forty other kids with cancer and survivors from around the country will donate more than 4,000 pairs of fun, kid-designed, non-slip socks to their local hospitals. Each is inspired by their stories of resilience. Maddie delivered her 100 pairs of socks to Boston Children’s Hospital, where she’s been a patient since she was 3. “When children are going through treatment it’s an incredibly challenging time and just to have a little bit of comfort when they’re sitting in their chair for hours and hours,” said Kelly Alexander, Maddie’s mother.

The socks were inspired by Jake Teitelbaum. He was diagnosed with cancer while a senior in college and couldn’t stand the drab hospital socks, so he launched Resilience Gives (1) Resilience Gives – resilience gives. The Cambridge-based apparel company works with children who are battling cancer. “We know it’s not changing their diagnosis, but we hope that by changing one small detail of that experience we can just bring a little bit of joy a little bit of light to that journey,” Teitelbaum said.

He’s bringing joy one pair of special socks at a time For every pair of socks Resilience Gives sells, which start at $10, they match it by donating another pair to a child in the hospital. So far, they’ve donated more than 12-thousand pairs to kids from Hawaii to Boston. They also donate hospital gowns for children.

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