8yearold Nicholasville girl turns holiday craft into mission to help children worldwide
Dec 24, 2025
An 8-year-old girl from Nicholasville is proving that age doesn't matter when it comes to making a difference. Avery McGraw turned her holiday craft project into a mission to help children around the world.Avery McGraw spent wee
ks making colorful homemade ornaments. But this wasn't just a holiday craft project. Avery had a bigger plan in mind."So other people in other countries could, um, cause people in other countries don't have a lot of stuff like we do, so I just wanted to do this for them," Avery said.Avery and her friend went door to door in their Nicholasville neighborhood. They sold more than 50 ornaments and raised over $450."So me and my friend just went around the neighborhood and asked, uh, going door to door asking if people wanted any. Um, a lot of people said yes," Avery said. "It made me feel good."Avery used all the money to buy items from the Food for the Hungry charity catalog. She chose things like bikes for children to ride to school, hygiene kits, and seeds for fast-growing food."Then she went through the catalog and circled each picked out different items that she wanted to um donate towards and got her calculator out and added it all up. So she really took this on us on her own and um just kind of helped guide her," said Cindy McGraw, Avery's mother.McGraw says the project taught an important lesson about giving back."We want our kids to know is it doesn't matter how old you are, or how much money you have, you can be generous and find different ways to give back and help those who need it most," McGraw said.
...read more
read less