Collier County student survived cancer, now raising money for others in the fight for #GivingTuesday

A long time ago, people helped Macey King beat cancer. Now, she hopes people will join her in paying it forward.

At six years old, King figured it out: she didn’t have long to live.

“Nobody had to tell me,” she said. “When you’re dying or…on that track. Even at that age, at least I knew. But it didn’t stop me. Because it didn’t stop anyone else…saying, ‘No, we can fix it’ and ‘We still have things we can try.'”

Not her parents, not her doctors. Together, they fought and beat Ewing Sarcoma, a rare bone and tissue cancer.

From that day, King thought about how she could help others never lose hope. In a photo at age seven, she was a cancer survivor, standing strong next to her grandmother, also a survivor, at Relay For Life.

“It raises money for people that are in the situation I was in,” she said.

To honor others in the fight, she decided to organize another Relay For Life at Ave Maria, but the pandemic forced her to cancel.

“That was really upsetting for me too. This was my last semester at school. So that was kind of upsetting because that was my chance,” she said.

But she didn’t lose hope. She told herself what her doctors told her: “We can fix it and we still have things to try.”

So now she’s sharing her story in a plea to all of you to give to the American Cancer Society’s Giving Tuesday campaign.

RELATED: Gulfshore Life: Support one of these nonprofits during #GivingTuesdayNow

“It’s virtually and I think they raised 70K so far,” King said.

So what’s next for Macey? Becoming a pediatric oncology nurse, helping kids who started life just like her.

“There are always ways to work around the obstacles in your life to help other people,” she said.

The American Cancer Society says the pandemic’s impacted their ability to raise money critical to helping cancer patients.

If you’d like to help by donating for Giving Tuesday, click here.