Sadie Keller, a 10-year-old girl from Denton, TX appeared on the Fox News Channel to bring awareness to the plight of children battling cancer during the Christmas season.  Seeing a need to bring joy to those children confined to the hospital during the holidays, Sadie used the opportunity to promote her toy drive called Sadie’s Sleigh.  She is trying to collect 10,000 toys for children suffering from cancer.

Sadie, being a cancer survivor herself, knows firsthand how kids with cancer feel at Christmas.  In 2015, at seven years old, Sadie was diagnosed with Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia (ALL), a cancer of the white blood cells.  Shortly after diagnosis, Sadie began making YouTube videos for other kids diagnosed with cancer.  She wanted them to know what to expect with the treatments.

“I do not want other children to be afraid,” Keller said. “If I can tell them what to expect then maybe they won’t be so scared.”  

Now in remission, Sadie wants to bring Santa to the kids in the hospital.  In 2016, the Sadie Keller Foundation was established. The foundation’s to mission is “To put a smile on the faces of children fighting cancer all over and remind them to keep fighting by giving them gifts, to raise awareness for childhood cancer, and to make a difference.”   

This is not the first year Sadie has held a Christmas toy drive.  In 2015, she received donations of over 1,300 toys, and in 2016, she received donations of close to 5,000 toys.  This year, Sadie has set her sights on collecting 10,000 toys to be distributed at four hospitals- the Children’s Medical Center in Dallas, Children’s Medical Center in Plano, Medical City in Dallas and Cook’s Children’s Hospital, Fort Worth.  

Accompanying Sadie to the Fox interview was Texas Congressman, Mike McCaul, who chairs the Childhood Cancer Caucus in Congress and who has enlisted Sadie’s help to speak in front of Congress as a way of bringing awareness of the issues of childhood cancer.  McCaul is working to improve funding for childhood cancer research.  

Donations to Sadie’s foundation can be made through the sadiekellerfoundation.org.