SUMMERDALE, Alabama — On Friday, March 2, students will celebrate “Read Across America” honoring the birthday of Theodor Geisel, better known as Dr. Seuss.

On Friday, Feb. 23, Summerdale School held an assembly, led by second grade students, anticipating the day which was just one week away.

They celebrated with songs, dressing up as their favorite Dr. Seuss characters.

One student, however, 9-year-old Annabelle Norris, stood up and proclaimed how she had been influenced by a different kind of doctor.

Nearly one month to the day before Dr. Seuss’s birthday, students in second grade teacher Annette Kaechele’s class at Summerdale School learned, was the birthday of Dr. Elizabeth Blackwell.

Born Feb. 3, 1821 in Bristol, England, in the 1940s Blackwell became the first woman to earn a medical degree.

When Annabelle Norris heard her story, she wanted to know why more people didn’t know about her and, maybe most importantly, why more people didn’t celebrate her life.

She decided that day to do something to honor Blackwell’s memory, so she set out to make gift bags for young cancer patients at USA Children’s and Women’s Hospital in Mobile.

So she organized her friends and together they put together a dozen gift bags, labeling them “Belle’s Blackwell Bags.”

Because of the increased threat of infection this flu season, Annabelle and her fellow students were not able to deliver the bags in person, so Kaechele reached out to a friend, Lesley Pacey, founder and director of Eastern Shore Community Health Partners.

A former journalist who is the mother of a young cancer survivor herself, Pacey set out to form the organization to research cancer clusters in the area. While this is a little outside what she normally does, she was so inspired by the story, she decided to help deliver the bags to the hospital.

“This is just a special young lady,” she said, “and we wanted to do everything we could to help her fulfill her mission.”

Pacey was on-hand during the Friday assembly, presenting young Annabelle with flowers and thoughts of her appreciation for what she was able to accomplish.

Which seemed fitting, since Annabelle was dressed as a famous Dr. Seuss character, “Daisy-head Mayzie,” and as Dr. Seuss once said, “Unless someone like you cares an awful lot, nothing is going to get better. It’s not.”