Calgary girl turns 8, celebrates with hospital fundraiser

Six Calgary Hitmen players hit the ice to raise funds for the Alberta Children’s Hospital Neurosurgery Department, inspired by a very charitable little girl.

At only two years old, Tallyn Spring started raising money for the hospital.

This year, for her eighth birthday, she put together a skating event with six Calgary Hitmen players to support the cause.

“I kind of wanted like my skating to get bigger this year in my and so I wanted to ask my friends if his brother and some of his team could come this year,” Tallyn said.

It all started when her older sister Lette was diagnosed with cerebral palsy and epilepsy and needed brain surgery.

This inspired Tallyn to help others like her sister, creating awareness and raising funds for brain disorders.

“So she took $100 out of her piggy bank and took that over to the Children’s Hospital and from there it kind of continued to grow,” mom Amy said. “Her fourth birthday, she asked for no birthday presents, she just wanted money to give to Dr. Hader for him to continue with his epilepsy neurosurgery research and to help him so they could continue helping her older sister who was getting ready for her second brain surgery.”

“For these families it’s a really long and hard road to go down — watching your child go through this is never, never easy,” she added.

For the last three years, Tallyn and her family have hosted public skating events on her birthday.

Amy says they have raised $12,000 in six years and the goal for this year is to raise $5,000 more.

Tallyn is bringing in recruits to boost exposure.

“My friends’ brother is a Hitmen player and so I asked him if he could ask his mom if his brother can come with some of the other players,” she said. “So this year I am doing skating with the Hitmen but the Hitmen are on the ice at the exact same time as us so we can skate with the Hitmen.”

On Sunday, family, friends and the community got together to skate with six players of the Calgary junior team.

Before the event even started, Tallyn had reached her goal — raising $5,356 dollars.

She has created a Facebook page called ‘Siblings of Neurosurgery’ and is continuing to work on raising more funds.