It began with a simple wish on a holiday gift list. During North Kitsap High School's annual “Winter Wishes” campaign, a student named Oliver didn't ask for anything for himself — he asked for a prosthetic arm for his 14-year-old freshman classmate, Marques Reed. That single request grew into a community-wide fundraiser that eventually topped $15,000 and, by June, put a working bionic arm on Reed's body.
Reed was born with a portion of his left arm, and the fundraiser that followed Oliver's request expanded well beyond North Kitsap's hallways, reaching donors across Poulsbo and greater Kitsap County, according to KATU. Kouper Rahier, a student involved with the Winter Wishes program, said most gift requests that come through the campaign are far more modest — a Monster energy drink or a bag of chips is typical. Reed's request stood out immediately, and classmate Kenah Seelye said students simply wanted to get him what he wanted.
Early coverage from the Kitsap Sun and KOMO News in December helped push the campaign beyond campus, drawing in outside donors who turned a school project into a broader community effort. By June, the fundraiser had cleared its $15,000 goal, and North Kitsap High School marked the moment with a school-wide spring recognition assembly on June 9, formally celebrating Reed's new prosthetic in front of the student body.
How a 3D-Printed Arm Made the Fundraising Goal Realistic
The device Reed received is called the Hero Arm, a custom-fitted, 3D-printed myoelectric prosthetic built by UK manufacturer Open Bionics. It reads muscle signals through skin-contact EMG sensors, giving users up to six controllable grip patterns. Traditional medical-grade myoelectric prosthetics can run between $20,000 and $80,000, but the Hero Arm's 3D-printed design brings the base cost down to between $5,000 and $10,000 before custom fitting and accessories, according to a comparison published by Is Brave — a gap that made the student campaign's $15,000 target genuinely achievable.
Reed debuted the black bionic prosthesis in June and now controls it through an app on his phone, using different upper-arm muscles to trigger its movements. He demonstrated that control publicly, showing how the hand responds to his muscle signals. The Hero Arm is built specifically for users aged 8 and older and weighs under 12 ounces, making it one of the lightest multi-grip prosthetics available for a growing teenager, per Open Bionics.
Relearning Two-Handed Tasks, One Catch at a Time
Reed's rehabilitation is being guided by Eva Ma, an occupational therapist at Shriners Children's Hospital in Portland, Oregon, who is helping him adjust to daily life with the new limb. Ma described the core skill Reed is building as bilateral coordination — learning to use two hands together for manual tasks. That training now shows up in small, practical wins: Reed said he's gone from being unable to catch a ball to getting the hang of it, and he's also practicing two-handed catches while learning to set the table and take out the garbage.
Shriners Children's Portland delivers this kind of specialized rehabilitation through its onsite Pediatric Orthotic and Prosthetic Services unit, which fabricates custom limbs and provides care regardless of a family's ability to pay. Reed has since become a patient ambassador for the hospital. Looking ahead, the Hero Arm is expected to change how Reed plays sports and will also help him learn to drive.
A Bigger Barrier Than One Fundraiser Can Fix
Reed's story sits inside a much larger national pattern. Private health insurance carriers frequently deny coverage for pediatric myoelectric limbs, often classifying advanced bionic arms as not medically necessary or purely cosmetic, according to research published in PMC. That leaves many families dependent on community fundraising or nonprofit care just as Reed's did. Nationally, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that roughly 1 in every 1,900 babies born in the United States — about 1,500 infants a year — arrives with an upper limb reduction deficiency.
For Reed's mother, Nicole Reed, the outpouring from North Kitsap students and the wider Poulsbo community carried a message beyond the prosthetic itself. She said her son is willing to try new things, and that the support her family received has shown them there are good people in the world. What started as one classmate's holiday wish for someone else became, seven months later, a working bionic arm — and a lesson in how far a small act of thoughtfulness can travel through a community.
