Mom enlists social media to find Ghostbusters toy for 4-year-old son
'The whole island just came together for him,' says Andrea Donaldson
A P.E.I. mom is feeling beyond grateful for the help she received trying to find a Ghostbusters car toy for her 4-year-old son.
Andrea Donaldson says her son Tre is on the autism spectrum and has obsessive compulsive disorder, or OCD. Tre lives for anything Ghostbusters and Donaldson was worried that neither she nor Santa would be able to find a toy for him.
"He wanted this Ghostbuster car for months and months and months," said Donaldson.
Donaldson said she lives with anxiety, and when she was recently chatting with her son while putting him to bed, she really started to get worried.
"I'm thinking, 'Oh my gosh, Christmas is in a few days and I don't have the only thing Tre wanted,'" she said.
She said she didn't have luck looking in local stores and online prices were very high, with no guarantee they would be delivered in time.
Donaldson shares 11 children with her fiancé, with five living at home, so she said they have to watch their Christmas budget as well.
Social media leaves mom in tears
Donaldson put out a call out on Facebook, which was shared more than 100 times and resulted in someone donating a car to her.
"I only expected my local friends to be like, 'Have you checked here or there?' type thing," she said.
Donaldson said she cried several times reading all the replies.
"Seeing everyone come together for my little boy, it was just really amazing," said Donaldson.
Donaldson said within an hour, a woman was offered her a car and another person offered a pair of Ghostbusters pyjamas. Friends also helped her to get the items, which were in different communities in P.E.I.
'Happy to pass it along'
The woman who donated the Ghostbusters car is Keri Deveaux, who describes herself as a Ghostbusters fan as well.
She said she saw the post and instantly thought about the car she had that her kids no longer played with — so she reached out to Donaldson.
"It felt really good. She was so appreciative of the fact that we had the car and we were willing to give it to her," said Deveaux.
She said it felt good to make someone's Christmas special.
Donaldson said the toy was really the only thing her son wanted and it's a huge relief to have tracked it down to help Santa.
"There's a lot of Christmas spirit on the island," she said.
Donaldson said it means the world to her and she said the donations will make her son's Christmas morning.
"The whole island just came together for him," she said.