Tristan Vance is a normal six-year-old boy. He loves playing hockey and doing tricks with a cat’s cradle string, but when his mom, Angelika showed him the article about Carter Mantta from the April 15 edition of The Times, he wanted to help.
Together with dad, Jason and four-year-old sister, Arianna, Tristan and his family decided to collect bottles from their neighbourhood and to deposit the money into an account in Carter’s name at the Royal Bank.
Carter is two years old and waiting for a stem cell transplant at Children’s Hospital to cure a rare blood disorder. After his transplant, he will have to stay in hospital for at least three months and his recovery will take a year.
Having been blessed with healthy children, Angelika believes that it is important to teach her kids the value of helping others and to appreciate the opportunity when it comes up.
“He is very sensitive. He is showing signs of that (empathy),” said Jason.
“Please help me help Carter and his family,” Tristan wrote in a note that he delivered door-to-door throughout the neighbourhood, advising anyone who wanted to, to leave their bottles by the front door for him to pick up on April 23.
When the day of the bottle drive came, Tristan and Arianna started the collection process with just their red wagon.
After the first few houses the wagon was full and mom and dad were made to follow with their truck and utility trailer.
While they were going around the block, Tristan was thrilled to see that not only had people put out bottles, but that they were acknowledging who they were for.
One family on the street had been saving for a school fundraiser, but decided that what Tristan was doing for the Mantta’s was more important.
“Some of the bags even had my name on them,” Tristan said.
“People left notes with their contributions, letting him know that they were really impressed with what he was doing,” Angelika said.
Tristan was joined in his collecting by two of his friends and his cousin, but he was the one orchestrating the whole event. “Tristan, in his style, was sort of directing them,” said Angelika. “Telling them who sorts what and where it goes.”
The neighbourhood responded so well in fact, that Jason was climbing over the bags of bottles as he sorted them in the back of the truck. “I was a little bit unprepared for that kind of a reaction,” he said.
By the end of the day, the family filled three mega cases at Willowbrook Recycling, raising nearly $175.
With efforts like those of Tristan and his family, the Manttas would be able to worry less about money and more about helping Carter come through his treatments.
For further donations to the Manttas, an account has been set up at the Royal Bank in Aldergrove. To help the family deposit to “transit” #00160 account #5029954.