Familiar Faces

Photos by Mansoor Ahmad

NAME: Madison Harbarth

AGE

15

HOMETOWN:

Mankato

FAVORITE SUBJECT IN SCHOOL:

English

FAVORITE TAYLOR SWIFT SONG:

There is way too many but probably “All Too Well (Taylor’s Version)”

Always on the go

At 15, Madison Harbarth lets nothing stop her from achieving her goals

If you’re a loyal reader of The Free Press, you may already be familiar with Madison Harbarth. We featured her in a 2014 story that, while it mentioned the rare disorder she was born with called sacral agenesis syndrome, was mostly about how inspiring she was just living the life of a normal kid.

In fact, the reason we did that story back then is because Madison was part of Gillette Children’s Specialty Healthcare’s “Cure Pity” campaign, which sought to remove the stigma about people with disabilities. She was fiercely independent then, and still is today.

For most of Madison’s life, she’s been involved with the Children’s Miracle Network, an organization that raises money for local hospitals to fund critical lifesaving treatments and health care services. She’ll explain more about that in a moment. But she was asked recently to contribute a drawing for them, and they ended up using it in their annual calendar.

Mankato Magazine: You recently had some artwork published in the annual ACE Hardware calendar. Tell us how you scored that gig. Madison Harbarth:

I had Nancy Hefko from Children’s Miracle Network reach out and ask me to draw some pictures for thank-yous and then they chose one of my pictures to put in the calendars. I really started to draw during quarantine as I found that sometimes it is easier to draw things out than speak them in words, or just to express my thoughts.

My involvement with The Children’s Miracle Network has been ongoing since I was around age 5. We were asked to go to Washington to speak to several politicians who wanted to know about what pediatric health care has done for us.

We met with U.S. Sens. Amy Klobuchar and Al Franken to tell them how pediatric health care is very important. From there we started to help at Minnesota State University with fundraising for the Dance Marathon. It’s like a college competition among the Greek organizations raising money to help the CMN. I go and speak (well, my mom does) to explain my story and how their money helps kids like me.

MM: You recently started high school. Tell us what it’s like to start high school in the age of COVID.

MH: I think that it feels pretty normal except that we wear masks and wash our hands more often. I enjoy high school so far!

MM: You’re very involved in school, including playing trumpet in band, singing in the choir, participating in robotics … How do you find time to do it all?

MH: Well all of my activities fall at different times, but I like to keep myself busy and I like to try as many things as I can.

I choose to be involved in many activities as it gets me to meet more people and learn life skills and activities. It contributes to me being well rounded as I can make new relationships and learn MM: If you could change one skills for my future. thing about the way the world

My parents believe that nothing views people with disabilities, is impossible, so we figure a way what would it be? out to do things I’m interested in. MH: I think that what I would tell Adaptive downhill skiing was not people about people with disabilities something I was interested in, but I is that we are normal people and we knew several of the volunteers were are not that different from everyone people I met and trusted so I tried it else despite our disabilities. and love it.

My mom is on the board of the MM: You’re a huge Taylor Swift North Mankato Miracle League, and fan. What is it about her music building an adaptive playground that you love so much? and playing softball is something I MH: Honestly it’s probably the fact want to help with. that when I was little I saw her on TV and I just fell in love, and my MM: You’re also in the middle parents bought me all of her CDs of the wheelchair basketball when they came out and took me to season. Tell us how the season all of her concerts. is going and what you love Her lyrics are just so well written about basketball. and her songs are very catchy. MH: The season is going very When I met her, I found she is just well. I enjoy bonding with my a very nice and honest person and teammates and coaches. I love the cares so much about her fans. competitive nature of the game and just practicing and getting better at MM: Young people rarely get the game. a chance to tell the world what

they think. So here’s your MM: You were born with a rare chance. What should we all be disorder called sacral agenesis focusing on to make the world syndrome. Tell us a little bit a better place?

about how it has impacted your MH: I think that we should all just life. take care of our mental and physical MH: My sacral agenesis has given health and be aware and respectful me a lot of opportunities and made of others and just be kind. We me experience life differently, but I try to make it as normal as I can. should take care of the planet and just try to be the best we can be. Compiled by Robb Murray

Madison Harbarth participates in an array of activities at Mankato East High School including choir, band and, as shown here, robotics.

MM: Tell us something about yourself that would surprise people.

MH: I think something that would surprise people about me is that I love learning about the planet, renewable resources and how we can do more for our planet. I really got interested in saving the planet from my admiration of space. I have always been intrigued by it ever since I was younger. I also saw how much our planet is being harmed and wanted to do something to help it. Even if I couldn’t do much, I love to learn about it and explore the different solutions to renewable resources. I have thought about maybe being an astrophysicist but am not sure now. What if I was the first astronaut to go to the moon in a wheelchair? NASA was one of my favorite places to visit so, who knows? Maybe I’ll end up on a space mission.

MM: What’s your Netflix binge these days?

MH: My Netflix binge is pretty boring, but I mostly just watch the stuff that is trending and right now I am trying to finish “Outer Banks.”