This "Mighty" 10-Year-Old Girl Born Without Hands Just Won A National Handwriting Contest
"The things I can't do, I try to figure out the ways I can do it and try my best to make it work."
By Katrina Khairul Azman — 25 Apr 2019, 01:09 PM
Sara Hinesley has won the Nicholas Maxim Award for her "excellence in cursive" despite being born without hands
The 2019 Zaner-Bloser National Handwriting Contest awards students with a cognitive delay or an intellectual, physical, or developmental disability.
Born in China, the native Mandarin speaker came to the Maryland, United States when she was adopted in 2015 at six years old.
"The things I can't do, I try to figure out the ways I can do it and try my best to make it work," said the 10-year-old, who writes by holding her pencil between the ends of her arms
"I think it's kind of hard — well sometimes easy and sometimes kind of hard — cause you don't really remember all the letters to write," Sara said, according to WJZ.
"I like the way the letters are formed. It's kind of like art," she told Washington Post.
"I just try my hardest and put my mind to it and this is what happens," she added.
According to her teacher at St. John Regional Catholic School, Sara is a force to be reckoned with.
"I have never heard this little girl say, 'I can't.'"
"She has this independent streak where she just knows that she can do it and she'll figure out her own way. She is beautiful and strong and mighty just the way she is, and she just lives that way," said Sara's mother, Cathryn Hinesley.
She revealed that the 10-year-old has never worn a prosthetic and rejects offers of help or tools to ease tasks.
However, Sara occasionally wears the artificial hand built for her by her sister Veronica.
While Hinesley has yet to decide what she wants to do with the USD500 (RM2,067) prize money for the award, she hopes to inspire other children with challenges, reminding them that "if you try your hardest you can do it."
Impressed netizens took to social media to congratulate the little girl on her achievement
