Trinity's Wishing Star Ride to benefit child, family
Date: 3/27/2012
March 26, 2012By Chris Maza
chrism@thereminder.comWILBRAHAM — Trinity Torres is like a lot of 6-year-old girls.
She's shy at first, but once you get to know her, she's a social butterfly. She attends kindergarten at Mile Tree School and wants to play soccer like her big sister.
"She's a very, very bright girl," Trinity's mother, Mimi Torres, told
Reminder Publications. "At 6 years old she has an amazing vocabulary. She uses words like 'discretionary' in regular conversation."
Unlike most children, however, Trinity was born with a tumor on her spinal cord. The tumor went undetected until a month before her sixth birthday. By that time, the tumor had expanded to three quarters of her spine.
Since the discovery, Trinity has undergone surgery and numerous hours of rehabilitation. Unfortunately, the tumor left her with less than a 1 percent chance of using her legs again.
"It was a very difficult time," Torres said. "Especially after the surgery, Trinity had a very tough time dealing with the fact that she had lost sensations in her legs and found it very difficult being in a wheelchair."
About a year after her surgery, however, Trinity has adapted to her limitations quite well and now has big aspirations.
"After about a year, she had a total turnaround. Now all she wants to do is help people," Torres said. "She wants to be a doctor someday."
Torres added that Trinity still dreams of being a soccer player and believes she may one day get that opportunity.
"Doctors aren't always right. They aren't God, so you never know," Torres said.
Trinity's positive outlook is something Torres gives her Mile Tree classmates a great deal of credit for.
"I couldn't have asked for a better class for Trinity," Torres said. "She was uncomfortable at first with being in a wheelchair and going to school. But we can learn a lot from young children. The kids saw Trinity. They didn't see the chair. She has so many friends now that every weekend it seems we have a play date."
While Trinity has made adjustments to remain a happy child, the Torres family has had its difficulties. In addition to medical expenses, the family with five children, with Trinity being he youngest, has just one vehicle — a Hyundai Sonata — at its disposal and even transporting Trinity's wheelchair is a problem.
"Anytime she has to go to Boston for rehab, [American Medical Response] has to take her," Torres said.
That is why Torres and her friend, Nicole Cote, have organized a fund-raiser on April 28 called Trinity's Wishing Star Ride and Benefit, from which the proceeds will go to purchase a handicap van for the family and help defray mounting medical costs.
"I tried doing a fund-raiser last year, but there was just so much going on and it kind of got put on the back burner," Torres said. "Nicole is a longtime friend and I needed someone who had the time to put on the fund-raiser and there was Nicole, so willing to help out."
The ride portion of the fund-raiser is a bike ride that starts at the K-Mart Plaza on Route 20 in Palmer and ends at Pulaski Park in Three Rivers, the site of the main portion of the benefit.
At the park, there will be food, raffles, a D.J., a cash bar, a bounce house, arcade games and a gyrosphere, among other attractions. The entrance fee for riders is $20 per person, while adults attending the benefit at the park only would be asked to pay $15. Children ages 11 to 17 get in for $10 and anyone younger the age of 10 can participate for free.
Torres said that while plans for the benefit are well underway, more help is needed.
"We're still looking for more raffle prize donations and food donations," she said. "We're also looking for anyone who would like to do face painting."
Anyone interested in helping out can contact Torres at 777-1488 or Cote at 885-6344.
The Trinity's Wishing Star Fund also has a Facebook page at
www.facebook.com/pages/Trinitys-Wishing-Star-Fund/230749263630351.
