Sydney's Santa: A little girl's legacy embodies true spirit of Christmas

~ From the Dec. 2005 issue of In The Spirit

A mom from New Madrid, Mo., fills an empty spot in her heart at Christmas by making the holiday brighter for underprivileged children. Stacy Pikey's mission also includes encouraging people to give the gift of life through organ and tissue donations as a tribute to her daughter Sydney.

Sydney was 7 when she died in a tragic accident Sept. 15, 2003. Her liver was donated to a 13-month-old girl and her lungs were given to an 11-year-old boy.

Eight months earlier, when Sydney's grandmother died and left her tissue and corneas to be donated, Pikey and her husband explained to Sydney what her grandmother had done and the gesture apparently had touched the little girl more than her parents realized at first.

"Sydney was 6 at the time," Pikey recalled. "I would find little notes around the house she had written to her grandmother saying, 'I think it's cool that someone has your eyes.' So when we lost her, John and I did not have to look at each other. We knew she would want to be a donor."

While there is some comfort in that, it wasn't enough to get Pikey, a kindergarten teacher, through the next Christmas season. She and some fellow teachers were talking about ways to help her get through the holiday, she said, when one of them came up with the idea of Sydney's Santa. Being teachers, they knew which families had children who would not receive much from Santa. Pikey's cousin had just opened a gymnastics business and offered her building as a gathering place for people in the community to bring donations and a gift suitable for a child.

Although it was a hastily-put-together endeavor, the idea took off like Santa's sleigh.

"Word of mouth does not take long to get around in New Madrid," Pikey said. "We had 70 kids that night. They all came in with presents."

Pikey said her own extended family joined in the spirit of Sydney's Santa. Each family unit brought a gift for each member of that family unit. That added 75 Christmas presents to the growing pile. On Dec. 23, eight vehicles ventured out in a snowfall and delivered five or six gifts to each of 46 children, delighting them and astonishing their parents who had no idea this was going to happen.

"We made it through Christmas by helping other kids," Pikey said. "It helped our little boy to get a whole different association of giving and what everything is all about."

This year Sydney's Santa is going to be even bigger. Breita Church, manager of the local office of Mid America Transplant Services, said that the organization this year has taken on Sydney's Santa as its special Christmas project. A dozen MTS employees from the main office in St. Louis are planning to drive from St. Louis to New Madrid with their families to help deliver gifts. More children from more communities in New Madrid County will be visited. Pikey said that this year the group will also visit 13 teenage mothers, "and we will get to play with babies this year."

The community is embracing Sydney's Santa, Church said. Becky Sharp, who owns a New Madrid restaurant and catering service, has donated her facility that night to feed the St. Louis visitors and serve as a gathering place. Dr. Danna Cotner, a Cape Girardeau dentist, has donated toothbrushes and toothpaste to be included with the Christmas gifts. This year, Pikey said, there will also be gifts of food to provide a special Christmas dinner for selected families. MTS is offering for donations commemorative T-shirts and green bracelets with a Christmas tag with the inscription: "Don't wait for the holidays to give the gift of life."

In just a year's time, Sydney's Santa has blossomed. The gymnastics business where the group first gathered has been dedicated in Sydney's memory. At the dedication, 16 people registered in Sydney's memory to be organ donors.

MTS is also donating a website for donations and information. Tammy McLane of the St. Louis MTS office is taking steps to get similar programs started in that area. Pikey has high hopes for Sydney's Santa: "It's going to be global," she declared.

Pikey is also spreading the word of giving someone a chance at life by making a tissue or organ donation. Children readily accept the notion, she said. She explained to her kindergarten classes after Sydney died that "Sydney did not need her organs anymore so she gave them to someone else."

She says now she hears that thought echoed in the classroom and on the playground when children are moved to share. One will say "here I don't need this any more, and you need it."

Pikey says she believes strongly in organ and tissue donation. "The way I look at it," she said, "it was a gift to you in the first place. Who are you to keep it?"

It also has helped her get through losing Sydney to understand that, like all children, the little "girly" girl who loved red nail polish was a gift from God and wasn't really hers to keep. She says she still has days when she is bitter and angry, but "some days I say she just wasn't ours to begin with. I have to look at it that way. Through losing Sydney God allowed me to go this way."

The Sydney's Santa website is sydneyssanta.org. Visitors to the site can follow links at that site to make donations or contact Pikey. Donations can also be sent to Sydney's Santa, Box 233, New Madrid, Mo., 63869 or to the Mid America Transplant office at the St. Francis Hospital Healing Arts building.