Friends Auction Lamb to Raise Money for Heart Transplant (Private)

Last November, 12-year-old Lexi Anderson started feeling dizzy while playing basketball.

“We were running up and down the field and suddenly I stopped,” he recalls. “My eyes went black, I couldn’t see anything.”

In December 2023, Lexi was diagnosed with: restrictive cardiomyopathyIt is a heart disease in which the muscle tissue in the lower chambers of the heart hardens, causing reduced blood flow.

“The only cure is a heart transplant,” explains 45-year-old graphic designer Tamala Anderson. “She’s a strong little girl. He has a real, kind heart. It’s just broken.”

Lexi, who was placed on the transplant list on May 13, still goes to school but is not allowed to play or run in gym class. “He’s not allowed to be a child,” his mother says. One activity Lexi can still participate in: showing animals from her grandparents’ Dairy Farm at 4-H livestock competitions near her home in Cumberland, Wisc.

At the Barron County Fair last July, after the judges did not select Lexi’s lamb as one of 25 lambs sold at auction, Carla Hargrave suggested to her two daughters (13-year-old Holly and 15-year-old Hattie) that she give one of her lambs to Lexi.

“We both said yes at the same time,” says Hattie. The sisters, who live on a 600-acre farm in Spooner, Wisconsin, and help grow crops like corn and alfalfa, have been showing animals in 4-H since third grade. They chose Holly’s 154lb. Thinking that lamb meat would bring in more money because it is heavier.

“(Holly) said, ‘I hope you get a heart transplant, and we want to give you the lamb money,'” Lexi recalls. “I was very happy. He really cares about me; “I love it.”

Normally, at a similar auction, a lamb would sell for between $700 and $1,000. But when Lexi’s lamb came to a dead end, the bidding started.

“I was in tears,” Tamala says. “People kept bidding. They bid and bid and bid.”

Lexi’s lamb was purchased, donated back and resold four times, raising more than $27,000.

“It was amazing to see a small act of kindness turn into something much bigger than I could have ever imagined,” Holly tells PEOPLE.

The Hargrave family has had its share of health problems: Carla, 46, has survived breast cancer (she has been in remission for three years). Hattie had seizures when she was little, and her brothers use prosthetics because of a congenital condition. Holly herself was born with a cleft lip and palate.

“I’ve had many surgeries and I know how important it is to have friends and family come and support you,” she says.

Carla echoes: “It’s hard dealing with all this medical stuff and you always wonder why. “Why is this happening to us?” But when you look back now, it really taught kids to be compassionate towards others, the importance of being there for each other, supporting each other, and praying for each other. Praying for (the Andersons) and Lexi has a tough road ahead of her as well, and it was really important to be able to help ease some of the financial burden to allow them to really concentrate on Lexi and her health.

Tamala said the entire community “came together to help and donate to her daughter’s transplant fund through a website calledlove for Lexi”

“This shows how good the world still is,” he says. “I was surrounded by pain. People are coming together to show their love for my baby and they don’t even know him. They just want him to be okay. “We’re extremely grateful for everything people are doing because it’s one less worry we have right now, and our worries are so extreme.”

For more about Lexi, Holly, and other people doing great good across the country, pick up this week’s issue of PEOPLE, on newsstands now, or subscriber.