Bullied 9-year-old Quaden Bayles' family rejects $476K raised for Disneyland trip, wants funds to go to charity
The family of Quaden Bayles, the nine-year-old boy who became an internet sensation after he was bullied for his dwarfism, will not be accepting a trip to Disneyland and has asked that any funds raised for the same be donated to charities instead.
Quaden hit headlines across the globe last week after his mother, Yarraka, posted a video on Facebook where the young boy can be seen crying and begging for a rope to kill himself over the constant harassment he faced at school. "Give me a rope, I want to kill myself," Quaden — who has achondroplasia, the most common type of dwarfism — is heard telling his mother. "I just want to stab myself in the heart... I want some-one to kill me."
The video was viewed tens of millions of times and caught the attention of American comedian Brad Williams, who set up a GoFundMe page called 'Let's send a wonderful kid to Disneyland!' which he said hoped would show Quaden "there is good in the world." "I’m setting up this GoFundMe to let Quaden know that bullying will not be tolerated, and that he is a wonderful human being who deserves joy," Williams wrote. "I want to fly Quaden and his mother to America, get them a nice hotel, and bring them to Disneyland."
The page has gone on to raise over $476,000 from close to 21,000 donors. But on February 27, his family turned down the trip and said they would rather see the money be given to a charity to combat bullying and suicide.
"What kid wouldn't want to go to Disneyland, especially if you have lived Quaden's life," Quaden's aunt Mundanara said. "But my sister said 'You know what, let's get back to the real issue.' This little fella has been bullied. How many suicides, black or white, in our society have happened due to bullying." "We want the money to go to community organizations that really need it. They know what the money should be spent on," she continued. "So as much as we want to go to Disneyland, I think our community would far off benefit from that."
The family said, of all the charities, they had earmarked Dwarfism Awareness Australia and the Balunu Healing Foundation to donate the proceeds from the GoFundMe page.
Williams had written that "funds raised will be spent on two airplane tickets for Quaden and his mother from Australia to Los Angeles" and "providing a hotel, food, and tickets to Disneyland Park in Anaheim for multiple days," and that "any excess money will be donated to anti-bullying/anti-abuse charities."
The family is said to be in discussions with the comedian but may find a minor roadblock in the GoFundMe rules which state that funds raised on the page must be "used solely for the purpose stated" and that "under no circumstances may you use the funds for any other purpose."