A little girls needs your help

[Guest guest]

Hi everyone,

Just wanted to share something that I found in our local paper. It is very sad

but I know all of you wouldn't mind helping out his little girl. The article

is:

Look at what a postcard can do

Would you like to brighten up a little girl's life (10 years old) who is

confined to a Shriner's Hospital?

She has lost both arms and both legs due to cancer. Her one wish is to get into

the " Guiness World Book of Records " for receiving the most postcards. Time is

important.

Please send your postcard too :Faith Hoenstine/ c/o Shriner's Hospital, 3229

Barnette Avenue, Cincinnati, Ohio 45229.

On her behalf, I thank you.

Marilyn Chrisman

Lombard

[Guest guest]

Unfortunately, this is a hoax - url and text copied below

http://www.snopes.com/inboxer/children/shergold.htm

>snip<

......Guinness explains its position very clearly in the FAQ on their web site,

saying of Shergold record:

This record attempt has ceased. Many years ago, a boy fighting cancer started

a campaign for people to send him get-well messages in order to set a record for

the most items received. Not only was that boy successful in getting a mention

in the 1991 edition of the Guinness World Records book, he also made a full

recovery. However, since then chain mails have started up with variations on the

original story, some requesting business cards or compliments slips rather than

get-well messages. If you get any such request, please destroy it, and if anyone

asks you about it, please tell them it is a hoax!

Make-A-Wish and Guinness World Records aren't the only ones pleading for the

madness end: both Craig and his parents have granted a number of interviews in

an attempt to put an end to this, including an appearance on ABC's Good Morning

America on 26 October 1997. No such luck so far though.

The Internet has spawned a further " dying child wants to get into the Guinness

World Book of Records for collecting the most get well cards " tale, this one

about girl child who has had all her limbs amputated.

Faith is a little girl with a rare form of cancer. She has had to have both

arms and legs amputated. This cancer will eventually take her life. Her wish is

to be in the Guiness Book of World Records for getting the most get well cards.

I believe she is 10 years old. Please take the time to make her wish come true.

Faith Hoemspine

c/o Shriners Hospital

3229 Burnet Avenue

Cincinnati Ohio

45229-3095

(The same appeal, with the girl's name correctly spelled as " Faith Hoenstine, "

was being circulated on the Internet in 1999.)

Once again, the plight of a real person has managed to spark a false appeal for

cards. The youngster and her travails are real, but the request for cards is

not, nor is the resulting deluge of mail welcome.

Faith Hoenstine, who was 15 in 2001, has been through mulitiple amputations and

was treated at the Shriners Hospital in Cincinnati. (She has had both legs

amputated above the knees, her left arm above the elbow, and the fingers and

most of the thumb on her right hand. The Shriners' famed burn care unit effected

the skin grafts necessary to ease the girl's recovery from such drastic

surgeries.)

She does not have cancer -- her condition was brought about by a bacterial

infection. At no time did she express an interest in collecting the most get

well cards or in any other fashion look to set a Guinness record. The family

speculates the now widespread Internet appeal was begun by an anonymous

well-wisher in their area. All they know is it didn't begin with them.

Folks at the Cincinnati Shriners Hospital have had to field a number of

inquiries about this specious appeal. Faith's family has been swamped in

incoming mail (about 10,000 pieces a week in late 2001, down from a mid-2001

peak of 50,000.) " We'd like this to stop, " said her father, .

A decade after the original Shergold appeal was broadcast, another real request

for cards has come to light. Four-year-old Paige Lane of Cookeville, Tennessee,

died of cancer on 30 December 1999. During a hospital visit towards the end of

her brief life, she mentioned to a nurse how she'd like to get Christmas cards

like some of the other children were then receiving. That wish became translated

into an Internet appeal. Paige received hundreds of thousands of such cards (and

gifts too) before passing away.

Reply To: CHARGE

To: CHARGE <CHARGE >

Subject: A little girls needs your help

Date: Tue, 16 Dec 2003 07:16:43 -0800 (PST)

Hi everyone,

Just wanted to share something that I found in our local paper. It is very

sad but I know all of you wouldn't mind helping out his little girl. The article

is:

Look at what a postcard can do

Would you like to brighten up a little girl's life (10 years old) who is

confined to a Shriner's Hospital?

She has lost both arms and both legs due to cancer. Her one wish is to get

into the " Guiness World Book of Records " for receiving the most postcards. Time

is important.

Please send your postcard too :Faith Hoenstine/ c/o Shriner's Hospital,

3229 Barnette Avenue, Cincinnati, Ohio 45229.

On her behalf, I thank you.

Marilyn Chrisman

Lombard