Nine year old Demosthenis Alexander (Alex) Epaminonda was the sponsor child for 2002. Alex was battling leukemia. He received a bone marrow transplant from his brother on January 11, 2002 at the University of Michigan's Mott Children's Hospital in Ann Arbor, and was doing very well when we took him and his family on. Unfortunately, the bone marrow transplant failed, and Alex passed away on December 24, 2002.

As the 2003 campaign rolled around, T.H.A.N.K.S. was still looking for a child to sponsor. We were in contact with the family and knew that they were overwhelmed with grief and medical expenses. The family didn't have the funds to bury their son. This broke the hearts of a few key people in the T.H.A.N.K.S. organization who reached into their own savings accounts to come up with the necessary funds to bury Alex.

It was because of this that we made Alex our sponsor child again in 2003. The funds that were brought in during the 2003 campaign were used to pay back the volunteers who so graciously reached into their own pockets to help out a family in need, and to help the family with medical, travel, and everyday expenses that they still had to pay from Alex's illness.