Deborah Skouson’s daughter Cami loves her pink flower shirt. She really really loves it. She wears it all of the time and, having autism, her fixation with this shirt has been comforting for Cami. Unfortunately, like all kids that wear clothes, she both grows out of them and runs them down until they are threadbare. Kids! Deborah Skousan and her family have been able to secure four of these pink flower shirts over the past couple of years but, as time goes on, it becomes harder and harder to locate these shirts. So on August 7th, Deborah went to her Facebook page to ask for some help.
Okay friends and family, I need your help! As most of you know, my daughter Cami has autism. For the past 4-5 years, she has been fixated on THIS shirt. She got her first one in kindergarten 5 years ago, and we have found 4 more since then, mostly on eBay. Her current one is almost unwearable, and eBay has gone dry. This shirt is a CIRCO brand from TARGET. They were sold in 2011-2012. This is where you come in. We need another "pink flower shirt", so will you please share this post or even just the photo? We will pay for the shirt and the shipping if someone would be kind enough to sell it to us. It has to be this exact shirt! We've tried similar shirts, and they don't cut it with Cami! :) Thank you so
The Daily Dot reports that the story was picked up and went viral.
The request quickly went viral with over 22,000 shares overall, including one from a local TV news anchor and the Love What Really Matters page, which has over 4 million fans.
Skouson told the Daily Dot via email that she has since received over 150 shirts. "We were hoping for 4–5 shirts to use as backups so we wouldn't have to keep washing and mending the same shirt over and over," she said. "At first, my daughter was a little confused to see more than one of her 'pink flower shirts.' I explained to her that people gave them to her because they loved her.”
Cami is 11 years old and started fifth grade this summer.
Cami who just turned 10, started the fifth grade on August 11. Skouson says that even though they have more shirts than they need, the offers keep coming and Target also contacted her, wanting to make larger versions of the shirt to fit Cami into adulthood.
"I accepted their offer with tears streaming down my face," Skouson said. "The kindness being shown my little girl has been so beautiful."
Shirts came in from everywhere including England and Germany and even an post-office-thwarted attempt from the Philippines. I think someone rubbed a bag of dander onto my computer, damn allergies!