Utah Sisters Make 1,989 Paper Cranes for Taylor Swift's Mom
The music star announced her mom, Andrea, is battling cancer.
— -- A pair of sisters from Salt Lake City started on a quest last December to make 1,989 paper cranes for music superstar Taylor Swift.
The sisters, Sam and Jo Brady, were inspired by the Japanese legend that if someone folds 1,000 paper cranes they will be granted a wish -- as described in the book “Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes.”
The girls, ages 11 and 8 respectively, had a wish to get tickets to Swift’s upcoming concert tour. They upgraded the 1,000 cranes to 1,989 paper cranes in honor of the name of both Swift’s tour and her chart-topping album, “1989.”
All of that changed when Sam and Jo heard the announcement from Swift earlier this month that her mother, Andrea Swift, is battling cancer.
“I was trying to find an address to get them shipped to the right place and they came to me and said, ‘You know, mom, we think it would be better for us to send these to Taylor Swift’s mom to help her beat cancer,’” the girl’s mom, Laurie Brady, told ABC News.
“It never ceases to amaze me how innocent and hopeful children can be,” Brady said. “We’re doing everything we can to get them to Taylor and her mom.”
The 1,989 paper cranes -– which took the sisters about 30 minutes per day for four months to complete -– are now stored in a box at the Brady’s Utah home as they try to get them directly to the Swifts.
The girls, both competitive dancers, have handed out flyers at school and at dance competitions directing people to the YouTube video they posted earlier this month.
“I’m not on the Twitter scene but it would be great if people just blew up her Twitter page because I know she’s on there a lot,” Brady said of Swift.
If Jo and Sam do reach Swift and end up with concert tickets after all, Brady says they already have a volunteer to chaperone them, their 19-year-old brother.
“He made fun of us at first but you never know what’s going to happen,” Brady said of her oldest child, Chris. “He’s pretty blown away now and told them that they have to take him with them if they get to meet Taylor.”
“I always tell my girls it’s not fun to be realistic every day,” Brady added. "If you’re going to dream, dream big.”
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