Maddi McKenzie was a real character. When Raeleen Van Aalst first met her she was three years old and she loved dinosaurs and dragons, while Raeleen's own daughter preferred fairies and princesses.
'She would bury dinosaurs in the sandpit and pretend she was an archaeologist, collect insects, and was always outside on her bike and playing in the water,” says Raeleen, 'She was a real tomboy.”
The Weekend Sun met with Maddi many times before her passing and she was a real battler in the fantasy world as well as her own. After struggling for 15 months with a cancerous brain tumour called Diffuse Intrinsic Pontine Glioma her demon is now gone.
Raeleen says when she learned of Maddi's death, her family immediately hopped on a plane and travelled home from Canada. From then on they have spent all their time supporting the family and helping where they can.
Raeleen recently put a post on the Scrapbooking Bay of Plenty Facebook Page asking for help to ensure Maddi's memory lives on.
'My idea was to create a scrapbook with photos of Maddi for the family, but I didn't have all my gear, so I thought it would be nice if I asked the scrapbooking community if they would like to help out,” says Raeleen.
'I know some of the scrapbookers do really beautiful work, so I thought it would be nice for papers to get created for Maddi's mother and sister.”
She says a few people are getting together to work on pages, while others have asked for photos and created their own, or sent blank pages where a photo can be stuck on them.
She says she has 10 pages completed so far and has been given an album by Craftables to put the work in.
Raeleen says she has been overwhelmed by the amount of support and wants to thank everyone for their generosity.
'I am so grateful we will have this beautiful gift to give the family,” says Raeleen. 'They are leaving Maddi's room all set up as it is, so I'm just going to give the album to them in Maddi's room and let them go through it.
'I'm sure we will all be bawling our eyes out looking through it.”