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Fishers girl celebrating birthday by giving back to community

FISHERS (WISH) — A girl from Fishers is celebrating her birthday next month by giving back to her community.

Instead of asking for gifts this year, she is asking people to donate for a good cause.

Emmy Seifferlein said she doesn’t want anything for her birthday. She just wants people to donate to her food drive to help families in need.

Seifferlein is turning 9 next month. She enjoys spending time with her older sister, playing with toys and listening to her favorite band 5 Seconds of Summer.

But this elementary school student has more than just playtime on her mind.

“Well, I wanted to like, make sure that families have food that they could eat every night,” said Seifferlein. “I have the stuff that I want for my birthday, but kids and families don’t have stuff that they need like food and drinks.”

Emmy said she was inspired to help at church. She was 6 years old then.

“We did this thing that like where we would give family food on like Christmas and Thanksgiving so that’s kind of inspired me to start a food drive for my birthday,” said Seifferlein.

So instead of asking for gifts she’s been asking people to donate to her birthday food drive.

She started off with 180 food items. Last year, she donated 1,800 pounds worth of food for the food pantry outreach programs at her church.

Seifferlein also applied for a grant to buy more stuff to donate.

“We asked for $600 so we could start getting like peanut butter since it’s more of an expensive item,” said Seifferlein. “We wanted to start doing like toothbrushes and toothpaste and wash cloths.”

Stephanie Seifferlein said her daughter’s desire to help continues to grow every year.

“Immediately afterwards we started talking about how are we going to do this again next year and what can we do to reach even more families,” said Mrs. Seifferlein. “The minute it was over she was already talking about, I know this is something I want to next year and how can we make this even better.”

Emmy already has Feb. 5 marked on her calendar. She said that day is not just her birthday, but a day to help and change the world.

“I want to set an example for other kids so they can start doing this on their birthdays so like everybody can have food to eat at night,” said Seifferlein.

The food drive will help The Sharing Place in Lawrence Township and the Come To Me Food Pantry in Fishers.

Emmy will have her birthday on Friday, Feb. 5 at Geist Christian Church at 12756 Promise Road from 6:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m.

For more information on how you can donate you can send an email to emmyfooddrive@gmail.com