Even as winds and rain from Hurricane Matthew lashed her Florida home, 8-year-old Madeline Fox was coming up with a way to help storm victims elsewhere.
“Madeline has always been a humanitarian little girl,” her mother Erin Fox told CNN.
Fox is a storm spotter for the National Weather Service, and weather talk is common in her household. The family lives in Tampa, a city that did not face the hurricane’s full force. But the storm made an impact on Madeline.
At dinner last Friday, her mother explained Matthew’s devastating effects in counties like Haiti and Cuba, and even in the United States.
Madeline left the table to finish her homework. She came down later with a hand-made flyer for a fundraiser she wanted to start.
“My heart just swelled up,” the proud mother said. “She just goes above and beyond and shocks us with how big her heart is.”
After a little bit of research, mother and daughter set up a fundraising page on Razzoo and chose Direct Relief as the organization to receive the funds.
So far, after one week, the page has raised a thousand dollars.
Madeline will continue to post updates on the fundraiser with tweets and original videos.
Hurricane Matthew has now passed. But Erin Fox’s fundraiser is still going strong.
“With everything that is going on the world,” Madeline’s mother said, “this is like a glimmer of hope.”