A young girl in a hockey jersey holds a check, flanked by two adults dressed formally against a plain blue backdrop. 1:50
Chris channel icon ChrisOriginal creator 728 views Save

The 9-year-old who asked for toys to give away

Addison Kapustiak is 9, and she has been in and out of hospitals for as long as she can remember. Before she turned two, she had already been through three brain surgeries. more

She has a rare genetic disease called TRAPS. It hits each patient differently, and it can bring fevers, aching muscles, chest pain, swollen red eyes and rashes. To help with all that, she gets steroids and anti-inflammatory medicine every other week.

A young girl lies on a hospital bed, smiling and holding a stuffed animal. A headline runs in white letters across the lower third.Save
Addison has spent much of her life in hospital beds like this one.

Her treatments happen at Johns Hopkins All Children's Hospital in Florida, which has a sweet custom. When a child finishes a treatment, they get to choose a toy from the toy closet to take home. After one of her own visits, Addison noticed the closet was running low. All that was left were a few Happy Meal toys and some small baby toys, nothing she would have picked herself.

So when her ninth birthday came around, she asked for toys. They weren't for her. Every one was for the closet, and making other kids happy, she said, made her feel awesome.

A young girl in a hockey jersey holds a check, flanked by two adults dressed formally against a plain blue backdrop. The headline runs in white letters across the lower third.Save
Addison Kapustiak is 9, and she has been in and out of hospitals for as long as she can remember.

She also started a nonprofit called Sending Smiles. It collects toys for the closet at All Children's and for other places too. One Christmas, she showed up with four carloads of toys.

Her local hockey team, the Tampa Bay Lightning, honored her as well. Through its Lightning Foundation, she was named the 268th Lightning Community Hero of Tomorrow and given $50,000, half for her own college and half for Sending Smiles. She posed with the check in a hockey jersey, a grown-up on each side and a smile on her face.