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#YourFamilyNow: Omaha girl's birthday wish benefits firefighters

Posted at 3:23 PM, Jan 03, 2018
and last updated 2018-01-05 13:51:14-05

Every year since she turned eight, Mia Rodriguez has chosen to give to others for her birthday. This year, as she turns 13, she is collecting items to put in 660 goodie bags. They will be distributed to 25 Omaha Fire Stations as part of Mia's Birthday Extravaganza Wish.

The goodie bags will include coffee, hand sanitizer, kleenex, as well as candies with little notes to make them smile and more. 

Her motivations is simple, "helping other people to make them feel better about themselves and helping the community realize there's other things that are important too."

She is choosing to help firefighters after handing out care packages to Omaha police officers last year. She had a specific reason for picking that group, "police officers have like this bad reputation to other people I guess and there was a girl at school who was saying bad things about police officers so I thought, let's do police officers this year." That was such a success, she wanted to help other first responders and chose the fire department. 

This weekend, on Saturday, January 6, Rodriguez is asking anyone who would like to help to join her at the Hope Center for Kids from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m.

She also needs more money to add items to the goodie bags. If you would like to donate items, you can reach out to her family at MiasBirthdayWish@gmail.com. They are also accepting money through this GoFundMe Page. And you can learn more about her mission by going to her Facebook Page

Once all the items are packaged up, they will be delivered to the fire stations on January 12 and January 15-which is Mia's actual birthday. 

If you have a story idea for #YourFamilyNow on Upfront at 4, email Jennifer.Griswold@3NewsNow.com or reach out to her on Facebook