Maria Andrejczyk - An Olympian who sold her Silver Medal

We all love to talk about selfless service - most people do.
But occasionally, we see some great people - who, instead of talking - simply do it.
The story of one such person has come to light in the last few days.

For Maria Magdalena Andrejczyk - a Polish javelin thrower - something mattered more than the silver medal she won in the Tokyo Olympics.
She decided to auction her medal to raise money to help a stranger - to pay for surgery for an 8-month-old baby with a heart defect.
She is a survivor of bone cancer herself. 

So she knows pain and suffering from her own experience.

We all go through ups and downs in life.
We all experience some pain and suffering in our own lives.
But how many of us truly understand and feel the pain of others?
How many of us are willing to sacrifice something we worked so hard to achieve - in order to help others?

Just days after the Tokyo Olympics, Maria Andrejczyk announced that she would sell her medal and give the money toward an operation for 8-month-old Miloszek Malysa.

Maria had missed winning a medal in the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Olympics by a mere two centimeters.
But this time, she won the silver medal.
However, she chose to sell the only Olympic medal she received to help a stranger.

According to a fundraiser page, the boy is under home hospice care and requires an urgent operation in the United States.
Maria said - Miloszek Malysa already has a head start - from a fundraiser for a boy who didn’t make it in time but whose amazing parents decided to pass on the funds they collected to help another child in need. And I also want to help in this way.

It’s for him that I am auctioning my Olympic silver medal - which for me is a symbol of struggle, faith, and pursuit of dreams despite many odds.” - she said.

She received the highest bid of $125,000 from Zabka, a Polish convenience store chain - which she accepted and set the funds to help the child for surgery at Stanford University Medical Center.

Zabka, however, gave the medal back to Maria Andrejczyk by saying - 
"We were moved by the beautiful and extremely noble gesture of our Olympian and we decided that the silver medal from Tokyo will remain with Ms. Maria, who showed how great she is."

This is another example of a wonderful gesture of selflessness by Zabka - in appreciation for Maria's selfless Seva.

            (Based on the information collected from the web)

                                         ' Rajan Sachdeva '