Family-run online art gallery donates proceeds to fund therapy for child with cerebral palsy

A young Calgary boy's aunt and great aunt have found a creative way to help cover his expensive therapies.

Family members of a three-year-old boy with cerebral palsy came up with a unique way to raise money for his therapy—selling their paintings through an online art gallery.

Suzanne Mireault and her niece Melanie Mireault are the part-time artists who have created dozens of paintings in a 15-month period to sell online.

“We both paint,” said Melanie.

“Suzanne came to me on the phone one day, and she’s like, ‘Costs for Beckett’s care are really expensive. How can we help? What if we sold our art and helped Beckett and his family?’

They came up with the Little Bee Gallery (www.littlebeegallery.com).

“(Beckett Mireault Hickerson) is the heartbeat of the whole gallery,” said Melanie.

“After he was born, we started calling him Little Bee, so Little Bee Gallery was just a natural name for it.”

Melanie is Beckett’s aunt, and Suzanne is his great-aunt.

In a short time, the two have sold enough paintings to pay for all of Beckett’s therapy for 2024 and 2025.

“Beckett was born in May 2023 with a brain injury known as hypoxic ischemic encephalopathy,” said Chantale Mireault, Beckett’s mom and Melanie’s twin sister.

“It’s a mouthful, so most people call it HIE. Basically, it’s permanent brain damage to certain parts of his brain that control motor skills.

“When he was eight months old, he was formally diagnosed with cerebral palsy, and the long-term outlook of that is kind of unknown—it’s kind of a wait-and-see game.”

Chantale says Alberta Health Care pays for some therapies, but the rest are through insurance and out of pocket.

The family has chosen to enrol Beckett in programs with the Canadian Centre for Development.

“Beckett’s in a physio therapy intensive, which is two weeks of very regular appointments, and that costs about $4,800 for two weeks,” said Chantale.

“We do that four times a year, and then also there’s weekly physio that we try to keep up.

“We take some breaks throughout the year, obviously, because he deserves that, too, but we do regular therapy, so that’s also additional, so probably all in, it’s at least $25,000 for physio a year. Probably more.”

Chantale wants to give Beckett all the therapy available to improve his muscle control, and she’s seeing it make a difference even at such a young age.

“Physical therapy and occupational therapy are critical at a young age to help develop new neural pathways and help him become as independent as possible, so we wanted to start that early intervention as quickly as possible,” she said.

“(The treatments are) making him so much stronger, and it’s interesting; he’ll wrap up a therapy intensive, and then in a couple of weeks (we) notice that his brain is catching up to all the things he was working on.

“So his legs are stronger and (he’s) standing, he can do more weight bearing, he’s using his arms more purposefully and his reaching and grabbing is more targeted—all those things.”

Melanie says she and Suzanne are happy to make life a little easier for the family, and other artists are offering to help.

“We have an artist from P.E.I. who found us on Instagram and was like, ‘I have some paintings of mountains. They’re not going to sell in P.E.I., so can I get them to you for the gallery to support Beckett?’” said Melanie.

“She doesn’t know Beckett. She’ll probably never meet Beckett. But it was a story that moved her.”

Everyone in the family is grateful for people supporting Little Bee Gallery.

“Not everybody needs art,” said Melanie.

“Not everybody’s looking for art. But if you know someone who’s maybe renovating their house or they have an office space that could use a refresh, we would love it if you just told them about Little Bee Gallery and let them check it out.”