Mettea Antrup age #
BROKEN HIP
In February of 2013, something happened to
Mattea that changed her life forever. It began
when she slipped and fell and shattered her hip.
Her parents took her to Helen DeVos Children’s
Hospital where she received care. Mattea needed to be in a partial body cast for
seven weeks to make sure that her bones healed correctly. While recuperating,
she developed a strong calling to help some of the kids she met whose parents
lived far away from the children’s hospital, and sometimes had difficulty seeing
their kids. She imagined how lonely it was for some of them and decided to do
something to help.
Mattea participates in her local 4-H program and as a participant, reads books
about pigs, shows pigs, and sells pigs. This past year, she decided to name her
pig Helen DeVos and donate the proceeds from the sale of it to the hospital
in order to help make other kids like her feel better and happier. Mattea never
imagined that she would make such a big impact with the sale of ‘Helen’ the pig.
Typically pigs are auctioned off by the pound and they average $5-10 a pound.
Hers weighed in at 240lbs. Mattea met with the buyers and shared with them
her goal to raise money for the children’s hospital. The final bid for ‘Helen’ was
$28 per pound which equated out to an amount of over $6,600 she was able
to give to the hospital. Mattea’s donation went to patient families in need of gas
cards to attend appointments, food vouchers, a burn patient scholarship camp
($500 a child), grants, and more.