“What makes you different?” This is a question that nine-year-old Rosie Quinn, whose bubbly and chipper voice espouses much wisdom for her young age, asks when first meeting someone that might be curious about her bald head. Rosie was diagnosed with the autoimmune disease, alopecia, at two years old.
One day Rosie’s mother had a brilliant idea and decided to take one of Rosie’s beautiful paintings and have it printed as a headscarf for Rosie, in hopes that she would be proud to wear her amazing artwork and perhaps the focus of strangers would be on the beautiful scarf and not on Rosie’s hair loss.
This sparked the idea to create Coming Up Rosies and “smile kits”, to get these scarves, and capes, to other children. Since 2016, they’ve donated 1,500 smile kits to 20 hospitals and rehabilitation centers around the country. This is why the Red Cross has honored Rosie with the Youth Hero award, sponsored by ITW.
Learn more about the 2020 Red Cross Heroes here.
