A Thousand Small Sparrows, Not One Is Forgotten, Amazing stories of Kids Helping Kids

by Jeff Leeland, with Marcus Brotherton, Multnomah, 2007, 256 PAGES, ISBN: 9781590529331, $13.99

I’ve often heard one person can make a difference, yet I’ve never met anyone that did. Neither had teacher Jeff Leeland until seventh-grader, Daemon Sharkey enrolled in his special education class for physically and emotionally disabled kids.

Although Daemon didn’t fit the disability description, he was physically overweight and emotionally malnourished and needed a slower pace. Leeland’s class was perfect, but Leeland had difficulty focusing on teaching. After his family’s recent move across the state for this teaching position, they entered a waiting period for medical insurance.

In the spring of 1991, Leeland’s fourth child Michael was born. That same day he had also accepted a new teaching position at Kamiakin Junior High, near Seattle. He hoped that having settled into a new school, his year’s wait for health insurance would pass quickly. It didn’t. At six-months of age, Michael was diagnosed with a rare form of aggressive leukemia that required an immediate bone marrow transplant from their six-year old daughter Amy. But the procedure cost $200,000—an impossible amount for the struggling family. The insurance company refused to lift their waiting period.

Word passed quickly throughout the school and teachers took up a collection, but it wasn’t enough. A month before school let out Daemon came to Leeland’s office and said, “…if your baby’s in trouble, I’m going to help…” He handed Leeland his life savings—twelve $5 dollar bills.

Leeland took the money and the story to the principal. The principal opened a bank account for Michael with Daemon’s seed money. Students learned about it and their compassion was unleashed. Some cashed in savings bonds, the ninth grade donated their year-end dance fund. One kid, known as a trouble maker, knocked on neighborhood doors and brought in $26.

The Seattle media and television news broadcast the touching story and donations poured in. Even insurance company employees of the company that denied Michael coverage sent donations. One unemployed man sent $10 and an eighty-year-old man sent one dollar. Four weeks after Daemon marched into Leeland’s office the Michael Leeland Fund had accumulated more than $227,000, enough to pay for Michael’s bone marrow transplant and subsequent remission.

But it didn’t end there. The Sparrow Clubs—school clubs who adopt families with children in medical crisis—were born. Eight sections of Sparrow stories are in this volume; Sparrows of Courage, Hope, Inspiration, Selflessness, Direction, Purpose, Triumph and Joy. Each section tells four to six true stories of children in medical crisis. Some have happy endings— others don’t, but they all bring tears, smiles and a contagious affirmation of the human spirit, and the knowledge that God notices our hurts and provides healing and hope to the least of these.