Hey, speaking of airplanes taking off

[DrPizza]

A local child (local to me, DrPizza; quite a few of my students know this kid or his family; I'm not familiar with them though.) is dying of cancer. He's only in kindergarten. His last request is to set the guinness record for receiving the most paper airplanes. (I think their goal is something like a million airplanes... I haven't got a clue where they're putting them all, and their post office is going to hate them; then again, this is a pretty rural area - their post office will have something "exciting" going on.) But apparently they've already arranged something with Guiness.

From the email from his mother to his teacher which was passed on to me (another teacher):

Just a note to everyone,
My son Hunter has been diagnosed with a rare form of non hotchkins lymphoma called Burkitts cancer. It only affects about 300 children a year. Usually between the ages of 2 and 11 and its usually boys but can effect girls also. Burkitts is one of the fastest growing tumors that we know of. He went into the hospital on a friday and the tumor was about the size of a tennis ball. By monday it was a little bigger than a cantalope. He was started on cemo and it shut down his kidneys and then his liver started failing. On Wednesday, He told me that he could not see very good and then he quit breathing. He had tubes placed down his throat, nose, arms, and toes. He has swelling of the brain due to high blood pressure. Hunter went into the hospital weighing 40 pounds and now weighs about 70 because of fluid build up. He is now stable and is in the intesive care unit at Buffalo Childrens Hospital in Buffalo, NY. Hunter is only five years old. I would just like everyone to know, that Hunter has been set up with the guiness book of world records to try to recieve the most paper airplanes. All you have to do is make a paper airplane and write the state or the country you are from on the wing of your plane and send it to..

Hunter Winship (The Airplane Cancer Goal)
11227 North Hill Road
Freedom, NY 14065
United States of America

and an update just sent to me:
Channel 4 news is going to do a story.
Cheryl Winship called to let us know that Hunter's Air Plane project will be featured on Channel 4 tomorrow morning between 6:30 and 7 am and then shown again tomorrow night on the 5 o'clock news. [Feb 1, 2008; Buffalo's channel 4] She also wanted us to know that he is out of the intensive care unit and in his own room and looking better. There is no record for the most paper airplanes ever recieved so Fillmore [his school] has set a goal of 1 million. We are hoping with your help to get close to that.


For what it's worth, any kids serving with detention with me tonight, who don't have any homework to do, are going to be turning a big pile of scrap paper into paper airplanes.