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Hope and happiness - and a trip to Hawaii

Twelve-year-old Ryanne Briere of Harlem walked into the Havre Pizza Hut Thursday night with a big smile, a smile that is almost always on her face.

She walked with a severe limp and her arms were withered due to the TAR Syndrome she has had since birth. But she was happy because she and her three sisters were coming with her parents, Wendy and Ben Briere, for a pizza dinner.

Then she noticed something unusual. As she headed into the corner where her table was, a group of Montana Highway Patrol officers awaited her. Her grandparents were there.

One of the troopers bent over to tell Ryanne that she was going to Hawaii. She looked stunned and close to tears of joy. Everyone lined up to give her hugs.

She knew that her name had been submitted for a trip to Hawaii under the troopers' Montana Hope Project, but she had no idea she had been selected.

"I was surprised," she said. "I had no idea. I was happy."

Family, friends and troopers were equally happy. They saw it as a well-deserved gift because of her disease that has made life difficult for her.

TAR Syndrome - thrombocytopenia with absent radius - is a rare genetic disease that is marked by a severe shortage of blood platelets.

Her mother said it often affects muscles and joints, as it has in Ryanne's case.

She spent most of her youth in and out of hospitals undergoing all kinds of surgery, Wendy said. Recently, she's been able to undergo just two surgeries a year, she said. Leg operations are needed to make her as mobile as possible.

Her problems have not stopped Ryanne.

"She has an awesome attitude," said Wendy, "If she wants to do something, she will find a way to do it."

Last year, she was the manager of the junior high girls basketball team at Turner High School, where she attends. She had an especially hard time getting around because she had just had surgery.

This year, she's on the elementary school team.

Wendy said she had heard of the Hope Project, but mistakenly thought it was just for children with terminal illnesses.

In fact, Shawn Ostberg said, the project's regional coordinator, said that years ago that policy was changed. Today it is for children with any life-changing disease.

As the Briere family filled out the application, they asked what wish she would like fulfilled.

Her class at school had been studying World War II and the Pearl Harbor attack at the time, and she had become fascinated with Hawaii. Her great-grandfather had decided to join the military after the attack on Pearl Harbor.

So she said she would like to go to Hawaii.

The trip will take place the last week of April. Ryanne and her mom, dad and three younger sisters - including a one-month-old - will go.

Ostberg said the project will pay for the plane tickets, hotel rooms, spending money and all expenses.

Montana Hope Project was launched many years ago by troopers who saw the need for such a program.

It is funded entirely by donations and fundraisers. A total of 223 children have benefitted from the program so far, including six this year. Just two weeks ago, Hope Project granted a Fairfield 13-year-old girl the trip to Hawaii she wanted.

Ostberg is a deputy with the Teton County Sheriff's Department who got involved in the project and now oversees its operations in a vast swath of the northern part of Montana.

It's a lot of work, he said, but there are many satisfactions.

"When you see the looks on their faces, it's all worth it," Ostberg said.

 

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