‘I think they are going to be really happy’: Girl collects 10,000 cans of Play-Doh for Blank Children’s Hospital
By KCCI Staff
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DES MOINES, Iowa (KCCI) — Blank Children’s Hospital just got a lot more colorful with 10,000 cans of Play-Doh.
Maggie Mahoney, 8, helped deliver the massive truckload of Play-Doh on Wednesday. It took one month for the third grader from Gilbert to reach her goal of collecting 10,000 cans for children in the hospital.
“I think they are going to be really happy, and they are going to play with it for a really long time,” said Maggie Mahoney.
“Maggie’s Play-Doh Drive” was inspired by her older sister, Riley, who spent two years at Blank Children’s Hospital undergoing cancer treatment. Riley, 10, is now cancer free and remembers how playing with Play-Doh gave her a sense of calm and normalcy in the hospital.
“It also helps when I was getting my blood drawn and I could be distracted,” said Riley Mahoney.
Riley Mahoney said she is proud of her younger sister, Maggie, for paying it forward with this act of kindness.
“She really helps the kids, and she just amazes me how she wanted to do this,” said Riley Mahoney.
Blank Children’s Hospital says 10,000 cans of Play-Doh will last about two years and bring a lot of joy to the oncology floor of the hospital.
“We can kind of use different little pieces of Play-Doh to represent different types of cells, and kind of use that as a teaching mechanism for kids to have a better understanding of what their diagnosis might be,” said Hannah Flynn, a Child Life Specialist at Blank Children’s Hospital.
The Mahoney family says friends and even strangers dropping off boxes of Play-Doh over the last month. They say word spread on social media and the outpouring of support was overwhelming.
“It’s just been tremendous. We’ve gotten donations through our local communities as well as all over Iowa,” said Kevin Mahoney, Maggie and Riley’s father.
Maggie Mahoney is already planning her next act of kindness. She hopes to collect Legos next year for Blank Children’s Hospital.
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