By YESENIA AMARO | Merced sun
Morgan Dill was just an infant and already needed a liver transplant to keep her alive.
She was 3 months old when she was diagnosed with biliary atresia, a rare liver disease. By the time she was 8 months old, she needed a transplant.
Her mother, Miranda Dill, was a match and was able to donate a piece of her liver. "The liver is the only organ in your body that will regenerate," she said.
That wasn't the end of Morgan's medical struggles.
Morgan, now 10, still faces challenges in her life because of her transplant. But instead of letting those obstacles get in her way, she turns them into something positive.
On Tuesday, the fifth-grader at Dairyland Elementary School in Chowchilla received a special visit. Sharon Robinson, daughter of baseball Hall of Famer Jackie Robinson, came to Morgan's school to recognize her for being one of nine winners nationwide in the Breaking Barriers: In Sports, In Life program.
Morgan's essay for the program's competition was about her liver transplant. The program recognizes students for their efforts to overcome personal barriers using values that were used by Jackie Robinson. He broke the color barrier in Major League Baseball in 1947 with the Brooklyn Dodgers.
Sharon Robinson spoke to a group of some 250 students Tuesday morning. She talked to them about how her father was able to overcome many challenges, which included death threats. People tried to make him fail, she said.
"When my father broke into the major leagues, some people weren't happy," she told the students.
Regardless, he became an iconic baseball player. Jackie Robinson used determination, commitment, persistence, justice and citizenship, among other values, to overcome his barriers, his daughter said.
Every year, children across the country submit an essay with the hope of living what Morgan experienced Tuesday. Sharon Robinson said 9,700 essays were received this year.
Morgan is the only winner in California. "What we look for is how the child is working through (his or her) barriers," Robinson said.
Morgan has used some of Jackie Robinson's values to overcome her own barriers. However, her struggles aren't over.
"There's still challenges she has to overcome," her mother said. Morgan has to take an antirejection medication twice a day for the rest of her life.
The medication affects her immune system, making her more vulnerable to getting sick. In addition, she has trouble digesting fructose and sucrose, as she wrote in her essay.
One similarity between the baseball player and the 10-year-old girl is that Morgan has used what she's learned from her challenges to become an advocate, Sharon Robinson said.
In her essay, Morgan said it's important to tell her story to promote organ donor awareness. "I think it's a form of citizenship, one of Jackie Robinson's values," she wrote.
Jesica Weatherman, a fifth-grade teacher, started an after-school writing program specifically for the program's essay contest. Twenty students participated.
Weatherman said she was surprised when she found out that one of her students had won. "I was very excited," she said. "I got the call in the middle of class."
It's more than just a competition, she said. It teaches students constructive ways to deal with their problems. It was an inspiring experience even for those students who didn't win, she said.
The program, which is in its 15th year, has reached about 19 million children. "I get to visit children in all different parts of the country," Sharon Robinson said.
The fifth-grader also was honored during an Oakland Athletics pregame ceremony Tuesday evening. Morgan and Weatherman each received laptop computers as part of the competition.
Morgan already has lived up to one of Jackie Robinson's most famous quotes: "A life is not important except in the impact it has on other lives."
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