A seven year old in Virginia who was born with no hands recently won a national award for her penmanship.
Anaya Ellick, a first grader at Greenbrier Christian Academy in Chesapeake, won a Nicholas Maxim Special Award for Excellence in Manuscript Penmanship. She received $1,000 and a large trophy.
Ellick, who does not need prosthetics to write, “holds a pencil between her arms and stands at her desk to get the right angle for writing,” CNN reports.
The quality of her script “stunned” the judges, Kathleen Wright, director of the competition run by educational company Zaner-Bloser, told ABC News.
Ellick also ties her own shoes and dresses herself, her parents, Bianca Middleton and Gary Ellick, told WTKR.
More Must-Reads From TIME
- How an Alleged Spy Balloon Derailed an Important U.S.-China Meeting
- Effective Altruism Has a Toxic Culture of Sexual Harassment and Abuse, Women Say
- Inside Bolsonaro's Surreal New Life as a Florida Man—and MAGA Darling
- 'Return to Office' Plans Spell Trouble for Working Moms
- 8 Ways to Read More Books—and Why You Should
- Why Aren't Movies Sexy Anymore?
- Column: Elon Musk Should Not Be in Charge of the Night Sky
- How Logan Paul's Crypto Empire Fell Apart
- 80 for Brady May Not Be a Masterpiece. But the World Needs More Movies Like This
