Xref: utzoo soc.net-people:1019 misc.headlines:5241 misc.kids:6568 misc.misc:4222 news.misc:2452 Path: utzoo!utgpu!watmath!clyde!att!osu-cis!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!rutgers!bpa!cbmvax!vu-vlsi!devon!shockeye!hermit From: hermit@shockeye.UUCP (Mark Buda) Newsgroups: soc.net-people,misc.headlines,misc.kids,misc.misc,news.misc Subject: Re: David's Last Wish Keywords: He's trying for a world record Message-ID: <254@shockeye.UUCP> Date: 16 Dec 88 22:34:37 GMT References: <4592@homxc.UUCP> <81765@sun.uucp> Reply-To: hermit@shockeye.UUCP (Mark Buda) Organization: The Lab Rats Lines: 120 In article <4592@homxc.uucp> some dude writes: >>There is a young boy by the name of David at the Sloan Kettering Cancer >>Hospital who is terminally ill. His last wish is to be in the Guiness >>Book of World Records for having received the MOST Christmas cards EVER. >>Therefore, they have started a campaign to honor his last wish, and rather >>simple, request. If anyone would like to take the time to send David a >>Christmas card, please mail it to: Ahem. I am sick of this. So, if anybody else out there is sick of this too, please save the following and email it to anybody who continues to propagate this myth. ------------- cut here ----------------- From the Lancaster New Era, Lancaster PA, Thursday, December 15, 1988 Reproduced without permission All spelling mistakes are because I can't type, not because I can't spell. NO DAVID Countians Help to Send 300,000 Cards, Gifts To Dying Florida Boy - But He Doesn't Exist -------------------- By Cindy Stauffer New Era Staff Writer -------------------- It seemed like such a nice idea: send Christmas cards to David, an 8-year-old terminally ill boy in Florida who is trying to get into the Guinness World Book of Records before he dies. The campaign started in Florida and soon spread throughout the country. And what started as a nice idea began taking on monstrous proportions. More than 100,000 pieces of mail and hundreds of packages for David have poured into a Florida post office each day this week - 300,000 cards in the last three days alone. Here in Lancaster County, people's hearts went out to David. Local churches put pleas into their bulletins for mail. Disc jockeys read David's post office address on the air. Volunteers canvassed local businesses for free cards. Trucking company employees put notices on bulletin boards. But this week, the people in Florida who began the campaign asked it to stop. It turns out that there is no David. And there is no 8-year-old boy in Florida who wanted to receive the most Christmas cards ever. The true story is that Mario Morby, of Streetly England, a 12-year-old boy with cancer, wanted to make the Guinness World Book of Records for receiving the most postcards. This summer, Frances Keefe, founder of Florida Child's Wish Come True in Spring Hill, Fla., decided to help Mario. She says the Morbys asked that the name "David" be used to protect their son's privacy. The Morbys denied that this week. At any rate, Mario, who is in remission from cancer now, made the Guinness book earlier this year. His name is listed in the 1989 Guinness book for hacing a collection of 1,000,265 postcards. In July, the Morbys directed the postal service to deliver the cards addressed to their son to an English auction house, where stamp collectors and others can buy them. Money from the sales is being donated to the Birmingham Children's Hospital in England, where Mario received his chemotherapy. Meanwhile, here in the United States, the number of postcards addressed to "David" had trickled off by this fall. Then, as the holidays approached, Christmas cards began to arrive in droves, said Mrs. Keefe. "We don't know why," she said from her home in Florida this morning, where she fielded a steady stream of calls from reporters all over the nation. For the past several weeks, Mrs. Keefe has been giving the cards and gifts she has received for "David" to children of migrant workers and to children's hospitals, she said. "We really are trying to do our part," she said. "So many people responded in such a beautiful way. We don't want people to think we are taking the stuff to the dump." But local people reacted with dismay to the recent revelations about "David." "Oh my gosh," said Carolyn Frantz, a local businesswoman who had participated in the card campaign. "I feel terrible. I really thought we were doing something just great... I cried for three days about it. I was just so thrilled that everyone responded like they did." Miss Frantz, who works for Chrysler First consumer discount company, had first heard about "David" via a computer bulletin board message that went out to Chrysler First offices in 42 states. One of the first things she did was call the post office in Spring Hill, Fla., last week, to verify that it was receiving mail for "David." A supervisor there confirmed that mail was being picked up every day for the little boy. Then Miss Frantz asked her neighbors, friends, and co-workers to participate in the campaign. She got donations of more than 200 cards from local businesses and gave them to school children to send to "David." Although she was distraught that the campaign was not quite what she had thought, she said she was glad to hear that some of Mario's mail was being auctioned to benefit a children's hospital. Sacred Heart Parish School in the city and Highland Elementary School in Ephrata were two of the schools that participated in the card campaign. Between the two schools, almost 1,000 cards were sent to "David." Sister M. Seraphine, the principal at Savred Heart, said this morning, "I feel that the children have been let down a little bit. You try to give them a good example at the holidays and this turns them off a little." She added she hoped this experience wouldn't discourage the children from helping others in the future. Dan Felix, the principal at Highland, said he was not sorry his students participated. "It was done as a caring thing," he said. "It was a nice thing the kids did. It was the act of caring that was important." Even the employees at the Spring Hill, Fla., post office who are being buried under "an avalanche" of mail for "David" don't feel bad about the campaign. Patti Ferris, a mail carrier, said today the thousands of cards and "bins full" of packages are being kept out on a loading dock at the post office because there is no room for them inside. Mail for "David" now makes up 40 percent of the total mail at the post office, she added. "Personally, it's touched my heart to see so much come in for the boy," she said. "It kind of puts your faith back into the human spirit. "I don't see where the story has gotten out of hand - I mean the story behind the cards. People are genuinely sending these letters because they care. They wanted him to have that record." The problem, Mrs. Ferris said, is that it has taken so long for the message to get out to people to stop sending cards. Mrs. Keefe, the woman behind the campaign, added, "We hope everyone knows that their work has not gone in vain." ---------------- cut here --------------- -- Mark Buda / Smart UUCP: hermit@shockeye.uucp / Phone(work):(717)299-5189 Dumb UUCP: ...rutgers!bpa!vu-vlsi!devon!shockeye!hermit I hate this $%$@%!$@%!@$%@#$@!% machine. "A little suction does wonders." - Gary Collins