As is our custom, we kick off the Sun Christmas Fund with an update on the exploits of fund chairkid Madison “Madi” Ambos.
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Technically, she’s my boss.
I introduced you to Madi when she was three. Now, she must be, what, 20?
“I’m 11 years old,” she corrects me, with a small frown. “I’m a tween.”
Time flies. At three, Madi, who has cerebral palsy, could scarcely stand. Since then, she has taken giant leaps, thanks to her own grit and her family’s, thanks to Variety Village and your support of that iconic east end sports centre catering to kids with disabilities.
Regular readers know Madi learned to skate, and to ride a horse. She marched down a fashion runway and rampaged about Canada’s Wonderland. She is a rising star on Variety’s legendary swim team, the Flames. And now …
“Waterskiing!” she tells me.
Sure enough, there is video proof. Our plucky chairkid, jaw set and eyes afire, struggles to rise on her skis at a family friend’s cottage in August. Twice she tries. Twice she face-plants.
“A ski whacked me in the head,” she recalls.
“Little” brother Jack, 8, manages a brief run. (It frosts Madi that he’s three years younger but a head taller.)
Then the family friend lends a hand and up Madi goes, cutting through the water like a blonde barracuda for half a minute.
“Then we just kind of glided” to a stop, she says. “That was the funnest part.”
To think there once was doubt Madi would ever walk. Next year, perhaps I’ll report on her conquering Mt. Everest, or on her first space walk.
Or her debut on Dancing with the Stars. It is her new passion.
“I just wanna dance,” she tells me. She has always been prone to busting moves at home, “throwing myself around,” thumping floors and banging off walls. “My dad (James) said, ‘you’re going to break a bone!’”
Her dance craze bloomed on drives home from evening swim practice at the Village. The route passed a dance studio.
“It was my favourite part of those nights,” Madi says. “Through the windows, I could see the older kids dancing. I kept telling my mom (Katherine) I wanted to do that. My little cousin took dance and now she’s a cheerleader.”
So, for her birthday in September, she got dance lessons.
“Best surprise ever,” says Madi.
She’s learning hip-hop, jazz, interpretive, you name it. She’s still in Grade 6 and “we don’t have real dances until high school, like proms and stuff, where you have to get a date.”
I think in a couple of years some lucky boy is going to be swept off his feet.
Meantime, I am surprised to learn Madi got her first wheelchair a few weeks ago, a motorized TiLite Twist. Fear not, she assures me, “it’s just a tool.”
She’ll use it only on longer treks, with friends to the mall and such, which can leave her sore and exhausted for days.
Speaking of which, she was tuckered right out after a whirlwind jaunt to Disney World last month, with Dreams Take Flight. No parents, just an Air Canada jet full of kids with disabilities. The pilots wore Mickey Mouse gloves. The tour director was a guy named Crazy George, who hollered, “PILLOW FIGHT!” and organized toilet paper races in the aisles and bubble-blowing. Then a day at Disney World, then a flight home.
“Obviously, we skipped school the next day,” says Madi.
Luckily, she has recovered in time to help me launch the Sun Christmas Fund, for which I drag my jolly old self out of retirement in the wilds of Kagawong. We hope to reach $2 million all-time this year.
In coming weeks, I will introduce you to more of Madi’s friends and fellow Villagers.
The Fund includes great draw prizes. Not that you need extra incentive.
Variety Village has been at Madi’s side for every small step and giant leap in her young life.
“It’s just a great place to be,” she says.