Battled cancer when she was 3, and again at age 5.
By Deepak Chitnis
WASHINGTON, DC: A 15 year-old Indian-origin girl from Texas is using her experiences with surviving cancer to help other children who are now going through the very same ordeal.
Janvi Shahi is an artist who creates paintings, which she then sells. Every single cent of money she gets from selling her paintings goes towards the Make-A-Wish Foundation, which helps children battling cancer and other life-threatening diseases by granting them a wish that they hope to fulfill, such as throwing a pitch at a baseball game or being on their favorite TV show.
Shahi is no stranger to the struggle of surviving cancer, having successfully battled leukemia twice in her life already. The first time the disease hit her, Janvi was just three years old. After defeating it once, it hit her again at the age of five. Both times, Janvi used art to get past leukemia, using her skills and imagination to take her far away from the realities of hospitals and cancer.
“When I was in the hospital, my mom would get me those paint-by-number, color-by-number books, and I would do those to pass the time,” Janvi explains, in a testimonial video played at the Make-A-Wish WishNight 2014 event. “That led to free-drawing, and free drawing led to painting.”
Now, a decade later, Janvi is using her art to help other children battling cancer. To date, she has single-handedly raised over $72,000 for the Make-A-Wish Foundation, helping children who are potentially on the precipice between life and death find some measure of solace and happiness in life.
“The first time I granted a whole wish, it was probably the best feeling I ever had,” says Janvi, who has sold more than 40 paintings and pieces of art for the Make-A-Wish Foundation. A single painting that she did sold for $12,000 at the recent WishNight auction, an incredible sum of money for any artist, let alone one doing the art for charity.
For Janvi, it’s simply giving back to an organization that helped her out tremendously, too.
When she was four years old, Janvi got her own wish from the Make-A-Wish Foundation, when she went to Disney World. Janvi says afterwards, when she began meeting other “wish kids” and talking to them, she realized how powerful the concept of a wish is, and what it means to these children.
“That’s when I started getting into making art and donating my art for Make-A-Wish” she says.
Janvi is currently a student at Flower Mound High School in north Texas. She plans to continue painting and donating the art’s proceeds for as long as she can. Given the trajectory she’s currently on, it’s more than conceivable that Janvi’s total donations could hit the six-figure number in a matter of months.
Janvi’s story can be viewed in the video below, courtesy of the Make-A-Wish Foundation:
Janvi, featured artist – WishNight 2014 from Moroch on Vimeo.