Mechanicville Teen Collecting Barbies for Children with Prosthetics

To some young girls, Barbie is everything. It's hard when there isn't a Barbie that represents you. One local teen is hoping to bring awareness and to bring smiles to children's faces.

18-year-old Chloe Newman was so excited when she heard that Mattel was coming out with Barbie Fashionista #121 about a year ago. it would be the first Barbie that had a prosthetic leg. Chloe has had a prosthetic leg since her parents adopted her from Kazakhstan 17 years ago, according to NewsChannel13.

Like many young girls, Chloe wanted a doll that looked like her, that was going through what she was going through. She wanted other children to feel the same way she did so she reached out to Mattel to order 100 dolls, but they have a limit on 20 per person. That's when her mom, Cindy went to Facebook and explained what Chloe wanted to do. Chloe wanted to get as many dolls that she could with a prosthetic leg to send to the Shriner Hospital for Children in Springfield.

Within 24 hours, people bought 200 Barbies from Mattel to donate to Chloe's cause. After receiving all of these dolls, Chloe isn't done, she said, "We need someone to make a male version because there's also a lot of little boys with one leg and a lot of little boys whose dads have one leg," Cindy said. "I said, G.I. Joe's got to get on this, somebody's got to get on this because, yeah, we have half the population that has one leg represented, but we need the other half too."

If you'd like to help make a doll donation, you can email Cindy at clnewman2@verizon.net.