Just three months ago, number 12 swished an overtime three-pointer to win a JV girls’ basketball game. Now, she fights a rare brain illness. And with the help of the community, she is winning that game too. 

Sophomore Meleah Plummer suffered a brain hemorrhage on Christmas Day 2021. She has endured more than 100 days of intense medical care and a 12-hour brain surgery. When she returned home to recover, parents formed a benefit committee to put together a lunch and auction hosted at St. Ambrose Catholic Church on March 27. 

“Everybody came together for us,” Meleah said. “Even people we did not know showed up. It was really cool.”

Meleah’s mother, Angela Plummer, said attendance to the benefit skyrocketed throughout the afternoon. 

“People just kept coming.” Angela said. “Whole families came that did not live here. That did not even include the people that came and got to-go plates.”

Ivy Pickens, a member of the benefit committee, said the impact of the event reflected upon Wall’s strong ‘love thy neighbor’ beliefs. 

“The benefit did not have a very big impact on the community because our community backs people from here all the time,” Pickens said. “However, I do think people not from Wall, looking in and seeing what happened and watching how our community reacts to that, it does have a huge impact.”

Sharing Mel’s story is an important action to pursue, according to Hawk Media’s social media specialist, sophomore Rease Dickey. 

“I do it because this is a journey for her family, and it needs to be showcased so we can keep it alive,” Dickey said. “She is still fighting and about to go into that next major surgery, so my job allows people to be informed of that.”

One of Meleah’s close friends said that witnessing her progress has been encouraging for their own life. 

“Seeing her grow has been really cool to see,” sophomore Emily Green said. “She’s such a fighter, so I know, through that, I can fight for stuff, too.”  

Dickey said seeing so many people donate was crazy to believe. Wall is a tight-knit community, and that does not happen in other places. 

“This was just a regular family that came to Wall where their kids play sports, and this came out of nowhere” Dickey said. “Everybody came together to tell the Plummers, ‘Hey, we are going to help you financially so you guys do not have to worry about that and focus on healing Meleah.’”

Pickens said the bigger picture of Meleah’s benefit was beyond comprehension. 

“With Meleah’s fundraiser, it was a group of moms that wanted to help their friend and her daughter,” Pickens said. “It truly was the fishes and loaves story in the Bible because God took all these little bitty pieces and turned it into something huge. It lets me know that we do serve a huge God, and it is very humbling to see that.”

The fundraiser was extremely successful, and it was one of many steps the community continues to walk with the Plummer family.

“We are just thankful to everyone for sticking by us through this and for everybody’s support, their love, and their prayers,” Angela said. “We couldn’t do it. We could not do it without everybody. There’s no way.”