“Every time someone recognizes me as ‘the girl who inspired Maggie Doyne’, I’m transported back to the time when a riverbank was my home. After my father left to remarry, my mother worked down at the river breaking stones. I remember the first time Maggie and I met – it was a day that I was helping my mother to break stones. Maggie approached the riverbank where we worked. We made eye contact and Maggie smiled warmly at me. I smiled back because her smile made me so happy. We developed a routine. Maggie would come to the river on her bicycle and I would get on the back and we would ride around exploring nearby places. One day, Maggie asked me if I would like to go to school. Given that my mother struggled to feed us, going to school was a distant, unimaginable dream. But I told her yes anyways, and I marveled as Maggie worked to fulfill the dream of one struggling child, and many others like me later on. Looking back, I could never have known that the person who made such an impact on my life would also go on to change the world around me, forever.”⁠ ⁠