Camas girl’s activity carts bring comfort

Despite being born with a rare metabolic disorder that will significantly affect the rest of her life, Nysa Vinod has maintained a warm, giving spirit and relentlessly positive outlook. When she was younger, she made get-well cards for sick classmates, despite not knowing how to write properly. One year, her father took her to an Easter egg hunt, only to watch her put the eggs she found in other kids’ baskets instead of her own. “She’s always been like that,” said Kavitha Ramachandran, Nysa’s mother. “She has always shown kindness to others.” Recently, Nysa’s kindness manifested in its biggest, most influential form yet. Nysa (Nai-suh), an eighth-grader at Skyridge Middle School in Camas, created a book and art activity cart called Stories and Smiles to bring comfort, creativity and encouragement to children during extended medical appointments. Nysa delivered carts to Evergreen Pediatric Clinic locations in Salmon Creek and central Vancouver on Dec. 30, and hopes to expand to additional medical facilities in the near future. “Books allow you to have experiences that you would have otherwise not have had,” Nysa said. “Someone who’s confined to a bed can experience what it’s like to take a hike outside or to eat something in a different country and stuff like that. And art allows you to express your emotions if and when words fail.” Nysa, 14, has Morquio syndrome, a rare metabolic disorder in which the body cannot process certain types of sugar molecules. Her frequent and extended medical visits gave her insight into how long waits and unfamiliar environments can affect children and families. She created Stories and Smiles to give others the comfort she found in children’s books and art activities. “She is incredibly empathetic,” said Laura Sheppard, the executive director of Little Wings Library, a Camas-based nonprofit organization that provided books for the carts. “She can sense what it feels like to be in those environments and wants to provide the comfort that reading and doing art does for her.” ‘This is all Nysa’ Nysa filled each cart with about 70 books, including bilingual, early-readers and chapter books, as well as handcrafted art activity kits, featuring watercolor paper and Wikki Stix — wax-covered bendable yarn that can stick to almost any smooth surface. She also hand-painted butterflies, ladybugs and dragonflies onto the carts, one of which was donated by the Camas School District. She also painted greeting cards that she hopes will help raise funds to keep the carts stocked with art supplies. “We are excited for her and excited to see where this goes,” Ramachandran said. “This wasn’t our idea. It wasn’t something that we wanted her to do. She’s self-motivated. That made us proud, for sure.” Sheppard launched Little Wings Library in 2023 to create and place children’s lending libraries in various Clark County locations. Nysa started volunteering for the nonprofit organization in 2024 and approached Sheppard with her idea for Stories and Smiles in the fall of 2025. “She said that she had come up with this idea from her own experiences of having long waits in medical offices,” said Sheppard, a library paraeducator at Dorothy Fox Elementary School. “I said, ‘I will support you however I can.’ I’m grateful that I was able to support her and help her navigate the process, but this is all Nysa. This is her vision.” Nysa put virtually everything she had into the project, to the point where her parents had to remind her to go to sleep on some evenings. “When I started, I just really liked the idea,” she said. “After we gave the carts to the doctors, I think it kind of made me realize how they would impact others. And as for my working habits, when I get into a mindset, or if I really want to do something, then I kind of forget about everything else.” ‘Normal kid’ Morquio syndrome caused Nysa to spend much of her younger life in medical facilities, where she underwent weekly enzyme infusions that lasted as long as five hours. “It was always quite boring,” she said. “I started to bring my Kindle, and I have the Libby app on my phone, which helps.” Now, Nysa is able to receive her infusions from home in 3½-hour chunks, providing her with the time and flexibility she needs to pursue her interests, including Skyridge’s Science Olympiad program. “A lot of people, when they see me in public, tend to stare a lot because they don’t really know what’s going on, what’s happening with this kid, and they tend to think of different ideas or just not ask,” Nysa said. “In my opinion, I’d rather have people ask me why I’m short rather than keeping it in their head.” Nysa is allowed to leave class early to avoid crowded halls and use the school’s elevators to navigate safely. Her backpack has been outfitted with wheels so that she doesn’t have to carry it around. And she doesn’t participate in the school’s fitness classes. “Otherwise, it’s not much different,” she said about her day-to-day life. “I think of myself as a normal kid. There’s nothing too much different about me.”

Related Stories