The OC Register: Irvine girl wins meeting with Nick Jonas

By Ian Hamilton | Orange County Register

PUBLISHED: September 20, 2010 at 7:14 AM PDT

IRVINE – Risha Shukla, 14, crowded around a table at her home with some of her friends as they made birthday cards for Nick Jonas, the youngest of the world famous trio of sibling musicians, the Jonas Brothers.

The band, idol to many young girls, played a concert at the Verizon Wireless Amphitheater in Irvine on Sunday evening.

Some of the cards the friends made are adorned with colorful billowing hearts and the words “I heart u.”

The cards don’t just demonstrate some fandom for the recently-turned 18-year-old Jonas brother; they also represent Shukla’s charity.

She met Nick Jonas before the Sunday performance because of her work with that charity and Shukla planned to ask him some questions about what they share in common – diabetes.

Nick Jonas sponsored a contest with Bayer Diabetes Care to give $5,000 to causes chosen by three winners, who each have diabetes. People entering the contest answered three questions. One of them: “How would you want the $5,000 to be spent by the [cause of your choice] and why?”

Shukla’s answer: “I’d want the money to go to the Kids Who Care Foundation, who works with kids who know what it’s like to have been on their deathbed more than once. They deserve a chance to forget their pain, and get the chance to be a kid.”

She won the nationwide contest in her age group and joined two others in meeting with Nick Jonas as part of the grand prize.

Shukla founded the Kids Who Care Foundation with her family when she was 7 years old after she was hospitalized for a chronic pancreatitis surgery.

The non-profit’s purpose is to cheer up kids in the hospital and volunteers do that by collecting and giving away toys and games, putting together gift bags and making card quilts.

Individual cards are stitched together by volunteers to make the quilts. The cards often have jokes written on them by kids because volunteers are instructed not to write things like “get well soon” because the young people in the hospital getting these cards won’t necessarily get better.

One of those card quilts is what Shukla and her friends made for Nick Jonas.

A limousine arrived for Shukla on Saturday to take her to a weekend of activities related to winning the prize. On Sunday, the events culminate with meeting Nick Jonas and seeing the concert.

The Kids Who Care Foundation started after Arlene Mottershead, a teacher in Irvine, heard about Shukla being in the hospital from Shukla’s sister, whom she taught.

Mottershead helped raise money for Shukla’s surgery and had kids make the first card quilt for her. She was there on Saturday along with Shukla’s friends.

“Enjoy every single second,” Mottershead told Shukla, as the girl left. “I’m proud of you.”

Shukla planned to ask Nick Jonas whether he thinks a cure will be found for diabetes or if ways to administer insulin to patients without taking shots or using a pump will be discovered.

Those are big questions.

“Maybe he can take a shot at it,” Shukla said.