APECED, Juvenile Rheumatoid Arthritis, Autoimmune Hepatitis, Pancreatitis, and Enteropathy.
Celebrated For:
At age 15, AJ is in 9th grade and though he’s half the size of his peers, his heart and his desire to serve others are twice as big! While unable to play sports like his brothers, he loves contributing to the action by being a bat-boy, keeping the books, running the scoreboard, and working the concession stand at his brother’s baseball games!
Despite his busy schedule and missing a lot of days due to illness and sometimes debilitating arthritis, AJ studies hard and gets all A’s in school! He’s even the secretary for his 4-H Club and has shown pigs for the past three years at the county show!
This superstar has spent the last 3 out of 5 holiday seasons in the hospital, and people were so giving as they showered him with love. Last year, AJ decided HE wanted to be the one doing the giving, so he saved money all year long and bought Christmas gifts for each patient on the 12th floor of Texas Children’s Hospital.
That wasn’t enough for him though, so last year this incredible young man started a toy drive called AJ & Friends: Kids Helping Kids. This drive was so successful that he was able to donate toys and gifts to children in FOUR local hospitals, and purchase additional iPads to give to 3 chronically ill children. He can’t wait to see what the drive will do THIS year!
“Even though AJ has to take 50 pills a day, 2 injections, and eat through a feeding tube, you would never know it! This lively superstar lights up any room he enters.”