“She really wanted to help someone else who couldn’t afford the surgery,” Dannefer said of Parks.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, a cleft lip and cleft palate are birth defects that occur when a baby’s lip or mouth doesn’t form properly during the mother’s pregnancy. The causes of a cleft lip or palate are largely unknown, according to the CDC, but it is thought that changes in genes or environmental factors may play a role.
“I’m really happy I’ve been able to help other people,” Dannefer said. “I hope other people will be influenced to help others.”
Someone who was inspired to help was her grandfather, Daryl Dannefer, of Rossville.
“We’re not supposed to be proud, but I was proud of her,” he said of Claira. “I always knew she had a good heart.”
Claira Dannefer said her grandfather was the person who gave her the idea to collect the scrap metal to raise the money. Daryl Dannefer said he used social media to get the word out that he was helping his granddaughter collect the metal.
“I put it on Facebook and it just went crazy,” he said. “I would also go around to people’s houses and let them know I was collecting scrap metal.”
Although they live nearly 80 miles apart, Claira Dannefer said she would try to help her grandfather whenever she could collect scrap metal during her visits to her grandparents’ home in Rossville.
“He did a lot of work to help me out,” she said.
Daryl Dannefer said often the main trash collector in Rossville would call him if he saw someone throwing away something that could be salvaged, like a large appliance.
“I would haul it into Topeka,” he said. “We were going as far as Onaga to pick up scrap metal.”
Daryl Dannefer said someone even donated a pickup truck to be salvaged. He said an employee of a recycling center in Topeka also donated some money to his granddaughter’s efforts.
“We were just blown away,” he said. “As I was unloading the copper, aluminum, electric motors, I explained to the man working there about Claira’s idea to earn money for those in need. He was so impressed with an 11-, 12-year-old girl’s heart to give that he donated 5 dollars of his own money to her. There are plenty of great people still around.”
Melissa Dannefer said she and her husband, Eric Dannefer, have always tried to teach their daughters Claira, Naomi, 13, and Hope, 8, that there are other people in the world who are in need and deserving of help.
“We’ve been blessed,” she said. “We’ve always tried to raise our girls to know the world is bigger than they are.”
