A girl leaves college to help her family, giving up her dreams… she thinks.
Up until Christmas Eve, Kristen Aggeler had no idea how her family would raise the money to pay her father’s staggering medical bills.
Her father was self-employed and has only a few thousand dollars in health insurance.
Now, she doesn’t need to worry. A group called the Elves of Christmas Present arranged for Research Medical Center to waive those medical costs and for her to get additional scholarship money for college.
“I don’t think it’s sunk in yet,” said Aggeler. “This is a huge burden off my mother and all of us.”
The Elves were moved by stories in The Kansas City Star earlier this month that told of the Raytown family’s problems. Aggeler’s father, Harold, was injured November 2 when his van slammed into a tractor trailer on an Iowa highway.
Since the accident, Kristen had taken the lead in running her father’s craft business, which was the family’s only means of financial support.
As a result she missed weeks of classes at Truman State University, where she is a Junior, to travel to craft shows in Minneapolis, Chicago and Omaha, Neb.
Money was running out, and her father’s hospital bill was running up. That is, until her father on Tuesday received a letter from Research Medical Center’s chief executive officer agreeing to waive all the costs.
