Students at Samantha Smith Elementary School gathered in their gym Friday morning for the school’s annual Martin Luther King Jr. day assembly. But before they learned about the United States’ most famous civil rights activist, they had a special visitor.

As kids filed into the room, 4-year-old Violet Spataro danced and spun across the makeshift stage in her bright red dress. She ran up to students she recognized, chatting and passing out high-fives as freely as candy on Halloween.

Violet’s become a familiar and welcome face to the Samantha Smith Dolphins. And she’s embraced them in return — as has her family.

For the better part of three years, Samantha Smith students have helped provide financial and moral support for Violet’s medical treatment for retinoblastoma, through their own chapter of Sparrow Clubs USA. Today, she’s out of active treatment and in a maintenance-and monitoring-phase. Hospitals will be a prominent part of her life, mother Shenay Spataro said.

Violet was diagnosed with the rare form of cancer in her left eye when she was barely 6 months old. She almost wasn’t. Her “well baby” check-ups all came back with clean bills of health. It was her parents’ worry about her eye-tracking development,  and their perseverance in discovering what could be wrong, that allowed her illness to be found early.

“When I looked at her, I saw the emotion in this eye, but not in this eye,” Shenay said. “Everybody else told us it was nothing, that it was just a normal part of baby development.”

There were other things too, like something “off” about the way camera flashes would reflect back from Violet’s eye in family pictures. These were small details, but they were adding up quickly. Finally, Shenay’s husband decided to research the symptoms they were seeing online, which turned up results for retinoblastoma and convinced them to take their infant to the emergency room at Seattle Children’s Hospital. Even there, they faced skepticism from admitting staff, Shenay said. But they were granted an examination.

It only took a short check for their fears to be confirmed.

“The doctor took a quick look at her eyes before he turned to me and said, ‘Mom, I don’t have good news for you,’” Shenay said.

Violet started chemotherapy treatment at 7 months. There were setbacks: Tumors spread to her right eye and subsequent tests showed she had a rare mutation and chromosome deletion that made her more susceptible to cancer.

In an odd way, they were fortunate, Shenay said. The family had just moved to the Seattle area from California two months before the diagnosis. Specialists in Violet’s condition are hard to come by, Shenay said, but Seattle Children’s has its own team.

That did nothing to defray the massive costs of chemotherapy and other necessary medical procedures and check-ups. The Spataros’ hospital social worker directed them to Sparrows Club USA and, after the application process, Violet became the Sparrow of Samantha Smith Elementary.

Students were encouraged to go out and commit to acts of community service and kindness. Their work earned credits that translated into funding for Violet’s treatment from the club’s sponsor.

Washington Sparrow Director Jeff Leeland, speaking to the Dolphins Friday, shared how Sparrows Club began when his son needed a life-saving bone marrow transplant in 1992. Leeland was a physical education teacher at Kamiakan Junior High in Kirkland (now Kamiakan Middle School) and his health insurance couldn’t cover the $200,000 needed for Michael’s procedure. A student in Leeland’s Adaptive PE class heard about his dilemma and decided he wanted to help.

“Dameon cleared out his bank account and came into class the next day with 12 $5 bills — $60 — to help my son,” Leeland said.

Then-principal Steve Mezich took Dameon’s money and placed it in a bank account for Michael’s treatment. Soon other students contributed as well. Michael received the bone marrow transplant and the model for Sparrows Club USA — for which 23-year-old Michael works — was born.

Shenay said the support from Samantha Smith has been amazing. Today, she’s focused on educating other parents through her Facebook page “Violet Brielle – Surviving Retinoblastoma.”

“I don’t want other parents to go through this … or feel over-paranoid about their child’s health,” she said.