She donates thousands of cans of Play-Doh to sick kids

Play-Doh is a fun toy, but when it helped Maggie Mahoney’s big sister, Riley, get through chemo, it took on a new importance. It helped the girls while away the hours, and comforted Riley. It was a blessing Maggie wanted to share with other sick kids!

- Bill Holton

Six-year-old Riley Mahoney lay in her hospital bed, her sister, Maggie, 5, snuggled beside her, watching cartoons on TV as their parents sat talking quietly across the room.

“How do we explain leukemia to them?” Emily asked her husband, Kevin.

Just then, the hospital’s child life specialist walked into the room, and she was carrying three cans of Play-Doh—red, white and black.

Emily, Kevin and the girls sat transfixed as the woman shaped a number of tiny spheres from the Play-Doh and jumbled them together on the bedspread. “Your blood has lots of tiny little cells, sort of like these,” she explained. “Some are red, others white. But inside your blood there are also these black cells. They’re bad cells that want to hurt you, but we’re going to use medicines to send them packing.”