Kids ‘putt’ in for a friend

Alissa Head zipped around Boomers in Fountain Valley Saturday, tending to her many young cousins and heaps of friends as they played a round of high-stakes charity putt-putt in her name.

Alissa, 12, didn’t always use the chair. Six years ago, the Huntington Beach girl was diagnosed with cancer in her spinal cord and had about a 10% chance of survival. Thirteen operations, six months of chemotherapy and two months of radiation later, Alissa is doing well and regularly smiles.

When she was not well, her brother Nick and some of her friends started a charity group called Alissa’s Angels in her honor.

“I was her friend, and when I found out she had a tumor, I wanted to help,” said Alissa Mowrey, 12, of Huntington Beach. “I think it feels really good to help, you don’t know what you could do by just raising a few dollars.”

With some help from Alissa’s dad, Drew Head, the girls began raising money for the Children’s Hospital of Orange County for much-needed equipment.

“We’re one of the lucky ones, so it’s an honor to do it,” Drew Head said.

Tanya Lieber, the vice-president of the Children’s Hospital of Orange County Foundation, said the hospital is honored by the passion exhibited by the Head family, a sentiment shared by Alissa’s doctor, Michael Muhonen.

“This is one of the greatest examples of families giving back,” said Muhonen, who is also the director of neurosurgery at the children’s hospital.

This year marked the fifth year of the miniature golf tournament put on by the girls.

“It’s a lot of fun,” Alissa said of the tournament. “It’s a good feeling raising money for a good cause.”

The tournament raises more just a few dollars. Last year, the event raised more than $11,000 for the hospital, and Drew Head said every year the amount seems to jump by at least 20%.

“It gets bigger and better every year, and the kids, we see them as they get older and mature, and they get better at doing it,” he said.

Last year, the hospital treated more than 200,000 children regardless of their family’s ability to pay the bill.

“We treat every kid, no matter if they can pay the bill or not,” Lieber said. “We need these fundraisers.”

The charity’s proceeds, which are always earmarked for programs for kids with spinal and brain maladies, will most likely go toward the purchase of a $2-million magnetic resonance imaging machine for the operating room, Muhonen said.

For more information about the hospital and donation opportunities, visit www.choc.org.