Hometown Heroes: Young girl flips for pediatric brain cancer

TAMPA (FOX 13) - Sydney Gad is a 13-year-old girl who loves to flip. She tumbles at gymnastics and does back handsprings down the hall at Hillel Academy.

"She flips everywhere and often,” said Amy Wasser, Head of Hillel Academy. “Even going to get her books in the locker room, which we try to discourage, but she flips anyway."

What her teachers do support is Sydney's social media challenge, Flip for a Cure. It’s Sydney's project to raise money and awareness for pediatric brain cancer.

"My preferable donation is $18 because 18 in Hebrew means chai, which means life. So for each donation, I want to save a life," explained Sydney.

Sydney got her inspiration from a little girl named Gabriella Miller, who recently lost her battle with cancer. And even though the two girls never met, Sydney wanted to help.

So she combined her love of flipping with her passion to help others and created Flip for a Cure.

"What started off very simple turned into this incredible thing that everyone wanted to participate in. It's really wonderful," said Sydney's mom, Stacey Gad.

The challenge is simple: post a video of yourself on Facebook doing any kind of flip; donate money to the cause and then nominate someone else. Sydney's friends and family have already gotten on board.

"They think it's really cool, and some of my friends came out with me to flip and they made donations," said Sydney.

She even got the attention of Miguel and Holly from Hot 101.5. They took the challenge and took turns doing cartwheels in their studio. They even gave her a shout out on the radio.

Sydney's mom can't believe her little girl is already making such a big difference.

"We're learning from her, and we all learned from Gabriella. So it's kind of this full circle," said Stacey.

They're big lessons from a little girl who won't stop flipping for a cure.