9-Year-Old Girl Gives Lesson in Selfless Act of Giving

SYRACUSE, Utah — Nellie Mainor is special — not because she’s lost the use of her kidneys and spends 12 hours a day on dialysis. Or needs constant supervision from doctors at Primary Children’s Hospital.

Nellie is special because this child is thinking of others just like her who go through hard things, and right now she’s thinking how to collect toys for those kids.

“This is so important to us. Because every time we do something hard, she gets a toy at the hospital,” Nellie’s mother Sarah Mainor says.

Nellie wants other kids to get one too. And so does Walmart for the month of May.

All the toys collected from donation bins at Walmart will have a special purpose.

“We will be collecting toys for the sick children of Primary Children’s medical center and also for the Christmas Box House in every store in the state of Utah,” says marketing manager Dan Schulthies. “This will help a lot of children.”

This kickoff at the Syracuse Walmart is beginning of an effort to collect more than 2,000 toys.

That’s why we surprised Nellie with a KSL High 5!

It’s clear Nellie has a lot of support behind her: the firefighters from the Farmington station who showed up for her KSL High 5, as well as friends, lots of family and of course Walmart.

“This year, she went to her friends at Walmart and simply asked if she could please put a little box in the corner. That’s all we wanted to do,” Sarah Mainor says.

But it’s grown into so much more — just to give back.

And the Mainor family gives back — and, in this case, even to me, in a powerful but simple way.