Playground fund honors memory of teen

A quick and tragic end to 17-year-old Amelia Harris Fisher's life is something her family hopes can be turned to benefit others in a special way.

Fisher, a Woodland High School junior, was killed April 5 when an SUV driven by her best friend was struck by a furniture truck on Highway 34 in Cape Girardeau County.

Fisher's aunt, Becky Harding of Cape Girardeau, recalls her niece as caring, especially for young children, including her younger brother and a student she helped through a school mentoring program. Fisher also hoped one day to extend a helping hand to children living in sickness and poverty during a visit to Haiti, which Harding visited on several occasions for medical mission trips.

Shortly after the crash, Harding visited Erin Cordell, Fisher's best friend, in the hospital. There, Harding told her of an idea to honor the memory of Fisher -- family and friends would establish a fund and seek donations for a playground to be built at a rescue center run by Real Hope for Haiti, a missionary organization in Cazale, Haiti, that provides medical treatment for sick and malnourished children and families.

"Amelia would have loved it," Harding said she was told by Cordell.

Harding, Cordell and Fisher's family, including her mother, father and brother, plan to design the playground and visit Haiti once the funds for its construction are raised. Harding described the center as a place where families can seek medical treatment and other resources. But there are no funds for something such as a playground, and one would be helpful so children can meet their physical and social developmental needs, she said.

Members of Fisher's class at Woodland High School plan to donate to the playground fund during their upcoming senior year, and Harding said the Marble Hill, Mo., community also has come together to contribute $1,000.

"It's something really neat that we can take this tragedy and take something that was near and dear to Amelia's heart and turn it into a benefit for little children," Harding said.

Fisher's family also wants the community to become acquainted with the work of Real Hope for Haiti by encouraging the public to attend a speaking event featuring the organization's missionaries, including rescue center director Licia Betor, from 11:30 a.m. to 2 p.m. Friday at My Daddy's Cheesecake in Cape Girardeau.

Harding is part of a larger group of are volunteers, including doctors, nurses and Christian missionary volunteers from local churches, who participate in organizing relief efforts and traveling to Haiti to offer their services. She said Friday's event will provide a look into the needs of the country's most impoverished residents, and how local people may help. Recent surveys from organizations and agencies that monitor hunger in Haiti report that nearly a quarter of the country's children suffer from malnutrition and as many as 67 percent of Haiti's 10 million people go without food some days.

The rescue center of Real Hope for Haiti takes in 70 to 80 children at a time and nurses them back to health and returns them to their families, according to the organization's website. Many patients also are treated for diseases such as cholera.

Donations to the memorial playground fund for Amelia Fisher may be mailed to The Limbaugh Firm, c/o John Harding, 407 N. Kingshighway, Suite 400, Cape Girardeau, MO 63701, or made through the organization's website, realhopeforhaiti.org. More information about the organization also may be found on the website.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

eragan@semissourian.com

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