Shirts come flooding in after mother's plea for daughter with autism

ST. GEORGE, UTAH — When Cami Skouson’s mother posted a picture of the little girl’s favorite shirt on Facebook, she heard from people everywhere.

“Every day since this post blew up, I’ve been teary,” said Deborah Skouson, whose 10-year-old daughter, Cami, has autism. “Germany, from the Philippines, Tokyo, Japan.”

Cami has been attached to the shirt since kindergarten.

“She has ripped, worn out her favorite shirt,” her mom said. “She calls it her pink flower shirt. She’s on her fourth one.”

The shirt, purchased at Target, has been out of production since 2012.

Unable to mend the paper-thin shirt anymore, the mom posted a photo of the shirt on Facebook, “so that maybe friends of friends could say, ‘Oh, yeah, I have that shirt, my daughter used to wear that shirt,’ and maybe we’d get four or five to use as a back-up,” Skouson said.

Soon, the pink flower-print blouses started pouring in.

“So far, we have about 12 that have arrived at our house,” she said. “We have probably about 140 more on the way.”

Just when she was overwhelmed by the kindness, Skouson got a call from the people at Target. They tracked down the fabric and are making shirts in different sizes that Cami can wear into adulthood.

“The executive said they don’t want us to scour the internet to have something that our daughter loves so much,” she said. “And of course, I was bawling again.”

And just like that, a little girl is happy, thanks to a lot of people and a pink shirt.

“We are all in this together, and we are supposed to help each other out, and that’s been reaffirmed,” Skouson said.

Cox Media Group