Warren Students Help Raise Funds For Child With Rare Disease

WARREN (WWJ) - Some local students are stepping up to support a young child with a rare illness.

"I brought the story to the students, and I said, 'Hey, you have an opportunity here to do something really great,'" explained teacher Sarah Sonnenfeld. "And they just really took it and ran with it!"

Sonnenfeld's leadership class at Fitzgerald High School in Warren put together a project to help with medical expenses for the family of 18 month-old-Elliot Carter, who suffers from two diseases that cause his body to reject food.

"His body sees food as a threat; it sees it as an invader," explained Carter's mom, Leah Carter. "And so it sends those cells out to attack it, and rid his body (of it) basically of it any way that it can....So right now Elliot has no safe foods and no safe formulas to drink at this point."

Extra Credit Union donated $1,000 to the Carter Family, as part of the project to reward students for collecting 5,400 books that were donated to two elementary schools in the district.

"It feels amazing, actually," Senior Jordan Shaw told WWJ's Greg Bowman. "I like helping other people, and everything working out the way that we expected it to."

Leah Carter, a Fitgerald alum, thanked the students, who also produced a public service announcement about the project.

"There is so much compassion in these children still, and there's so much drive to make a difference," Carter said. "We are just so grateful."

Learn more about Elliot's story, visit on Facebook, or at Leah Carter's blog, here.  To contribute to a GoFundMe campaign to help out, visit this link.