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Chris Pratt helps raise $92,000 for Joe Henson, 12-year-old boy with brain cancer

Chris Pratt helps raise $92,000 for Joe Henson, 12-year-old boy with brain cancer

Everyone’s favourite good guy, Chris Pratt, is at it again. Yet instead of cheering up patients at a children’s hospital, he’s helping one kid’s family pay their otherwise insurmountable medical bills simply by tweeting.

In June of last year, 12-year-old Joe Henson was diagnosed with medulloblastoma, a type of brain tumour. Since then, the Williamsport, Maryland, boy has undergone both brain surgery and a tracheotomy that left him without a voice.

The night before his surgery, Joe repeated a phrase that his father, who had died three years earlier in a car accident, would often say: “Fear isn’t real.”

Inspired by the phrase, Joe’s mother’s friends, Melanie and Jay Selway, launched a Giveforward campaign to help cover Joe’s medical bills.

Jay grew up in the same neighbourhood as Anna Faris and her parents, and approached the Faris family with a request: could Faris’ husband Chris Pratt tweet about their fundraising efforts?

“When all of this started with Joe, we reached out to Anna’s parents and said, ‘Hey, do you think maybe Chris could tweet [about] our fundraiser?’“ Melanie told TODAY.

Pratt was quick to lend his support. While promoting Guardians of the Galaxy last summer, he tweeted about Joe’s story — and made a “significant donation” to the campaign.

[tweet 1]

Months later, Pratt noticed that Melanie and Jay were selling “Fear Isn’t Real” t-shirts online. Without anyone requesting that he do so, Pratt tweeted about the sale of the shirts.

[tweet 2]

[tweet 3]

"It was just a regular night for us, and once he [tweeted about the shirts], my husband’s phone was just like, 'Ding! Ding! Ding! Ding!’” Melanie told TODAY. “We sold 300 T-shirts in two days. It was insane.”

Even as he promotes the upcoming Jurassic World, Pratt continues to retweet every single one of his Twitter followers who have purchased “Fear Isn’t Real” t-shirts.

According to the Hollywood Reporter, Pratt has helped Joe’s family and friends raise $92,000 toward the boy’s medical expenses so far, which will include nursing care, better in-home physical therapy and a wheelchair-accessible van for his family.

“Knowing that kind souls, from my friends to Chris Pratt, rallying behind Joe is quite overwhelming,” Joe’s mother, Angela, wrote in an email to TODAY. “I will be forever grateful to everyone involved in getting Joe better.”

“We all believe with the right therapy, Joe can overcome everything that this cancer…has taken from him,” she added. “He is my hero. His daddy is so very proud of him and so am I.”