Birthday Cards for Alyssa Bruno
Netlore Archive: Chain email asks all recipients to send a birthday card and a penny to Alyssa Bruno, a cancer victim celebrating her sixth birthday on August 2, 2006
Description: Chain email
Circulating since: July 2006
Status: True / Outdated
Analysis: See below
Email example contributed by Christine C., 21 July 2006:
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Subject: Please Read ...... IMPORTANT......... Cards for Alyssa .... not a joke! Hi Friends, Family, Colleagues and Random People who got on my email list! As many of you are aware, this past school year one of my kindergartners, Alyssa Bruno, was diagnosed with diffuse pontine glioma (stem cell brain tumor). She had a successful year of kindergarten, but took a dramatic turn for the worse at the end of the school year. As of now she has lost all movement in her left side and can't walk or talk. She has been on five different chemotherapy treatments and continues to be a little trooper! Everyone is praying that this upcoming week's dose of chemo will show some signs of improvement. On August 2nd Alyssa will be celebrating her 6th birthday. I've been thinking for a long time about what to get for her, but she is very limited with what she can do right now. One thing Alyssa LOVES is to get mail. So I thought I'd email everyone on my list and ask for you all to send Alyssa a birthday card. How neat would that be for Alyssa to receive cards from all over the country and perhaps the world! I'd love it if you all could also forward this message to everyone on your list. (I'm not a fan of chain letters, but this would really make Alyssa's day!) If you send a card please enclose a penny for "good luck"! I am going to have Alyssa collect them in a jar as a reminder of all the people who are out there praying for her. I know how busy everyone is these days, but sending a card to Alyssa would really help to brighten her long days during these next few hot months of summer. It will give her a little something to look forward to each day when she gets the mail. I've attached a few pictures so that you can put a face with the name! She's a cutie! :) Try to forward this to anyone who you think would send a card!
Thank you so much,
Alyssa's Address:
Alyssa on the first day of kindergarten.
Here we are on "Fun Day" in June. |
Comments: (UPDATED) I regret to report that that six-year-old Alyssa Bruno of Henrietta, New York died of brain stem cancer on August 24, 2006. At last count, she had received over 20,000 cards from well-wishers thanks to the chain letter campaign above, which was started by one of her teachers.
Alyssa was diagnosed at the age of four with diffuse pontine glioma, a cancerous tumor of the brain stem. Despite repeated chemotherapy and radiation treatments, the disease steadily progressed, leaving Alyssa partially paralyzed and unable to speak.
Regular visits to this site will be reminded of the case of Craig Shergold, a British lad diagnosed with "terminal" brain cancer in 1989 at the age of eight. Friends and family organized a chain letter campaign soliciting get-well cards on his behalf in the hopes of landing his name in the Guiness Book of World Records. The campaign not only worked -- Craig is indeed the permanent world record-holder for the most get-well cards ever collected -- it made him an urban legend. After a successful operation leading to his complete recovery a few years later, Craig's chain letter continued to circulate and the cards kept arriving on his doorstep. To date, Mr. Shergold, now in his mid-20s and still in remission, has received over 350 million of them, with no end in sight.
Sources and further reading:
Upstate Girl Who Received Thousands of Birthday Cards Dies
NBC3 News, 25 August 2006Add Your Birthday Wishes to Girl, 6, with Cancer
Rochester Democrat & Chronicle, 21 July 2006Kindness of Others Shines Through Darkness of Cancer
Rochester Democrat & Chronicle, 9 June 2005Diffuse Pontine Glioma
AboutKidsHealth.comCraig Shergold - A User's Guide
Netlore Archive
Last updated: 08/25/06
