The Free Care Fund at UPMC Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh ensures no child is denied medical care. And every year since 1954, KDKA-TV has helped raise money for the Free Care Fund with our annual holiday telethon.

This week, as we get ready for our 72nd annual telethon, KDKA-TV wants you to meet some of the children who are alive today thanks to the care they received at UPMC Children's Hospital.

Among them are 18-year-old Kyree Beachem and 19-year-old Nico Beachem, of Ellwood City. We first met the Beachem family five years ago when Kyree was chosen to be the junior co-host of the 67th Annual Free Care Fund Telethon. She's now 18 years old, has a part-time job and is a senior in high school.

"I am going to graduate this year," Kyree Beachem said.

It's a milestone that's, quite frankly, a miracle given all she's survived. Kyree Beachem was born with Hirschsprung's disease. It's a birth defect where the colon is missing the nerve endings that help food pass through your body.

At just 2 years old, she had a small intestine transplant at UPMC Children's Hospital, but that transplant failed. Five years later, she had another transplant. This time, not only her small intestines, but also her large intestines, pancreas, and liver.

By the time we met Kyree Beachem at age 13, she'd survived nine rounds of organ rejections and was cautiously optimistic that the worst was behind her. Since then, Kyree Beachem has had mostly good health.

Kyree Beachem said, "I've been having ups and downs, but I've been doing pretty good so far."

She had to have her large intestine removed a few years ago, following the four-organ transplant earlier. However, her mother, Nan Beachem, says she's managing without it.

"The good days definitely outweigh the bad ones," Nan Beachem said.

But Kyree Beachem isn't the only transplant survivor in the Beachem house. Her older brother, Nico Beachem, was born prematurely at 28 weeks. He weighed barely 2 pounds and spent nearly the entire first year of his life at UPMC Children's Hospital.

Nan Beachem said, "He had something called necrotizing enterocolitis."

So, at age 5, Nico Beachem had to have an organ transplant.

"He got the transplant, and he was one of these kids that just never looked back. Three days after his transplant, he was sitting with the Child Life Specialist in the playroom. It just kind of blew everybody away that he did so well," Nan Beachem said.

In fact, Nico Beachem did well until two years ago, when he went into organ failure and chronic rejection.

Nan Beachem said, "So, he's back on IV fluids now, 12 hours a day."

He also takes more than a dozen medicines a day.

"But around all of those IVs and the meds, he's living a very, very good life," Nan Beachem said.

Nico Beachem graduated from high school in the spring and is now hoping to get a job. He loves playing video games, listening to music and watching football.

"Every Sunday leading up to the Super Bowl. Last year, I watched Kansas City versus Eagles. Loved it," Nico Beachem said.

Nan Beachem added, "All those little things that you might have taken for granted with your healthy children are nothing short of a miracle with these kids. And so, you just stop, and you enjoy each one of those."

Both Kyree and Nico Beachem know they're alive today thanks to UPMC Children's Hospital.

"They've pretty much saved my life. I wouldn't be here today without Children's," Kyree Beachem said.

"The care at Children's Hospital is like no other. Everybody truly cares about these kids, and they give them the care that they would want their own children to receive," Nan Beachem said.

And if anyone knows about caring for kids, it's Nan Beachem. Over the course of 20 years, she's fostered 86 children and adopted five of them. That's in addition to having four biological children.

And for 14 of those years, she's done it as a single mom, often juggling going between home and the hospital.

Nan Beachem said, "It's tough when you have two medically needy kids to be in both places at the same time."

But she says she knew Kyree and Nico Beachem were always in good hands at UPMC Children's Hospital.

"I'm able to come home and care for the other child in the evenings when I need to, and know that their care is being completely addressed. I know that they're just as good there with all of that staff as they are with me sitting next to their bed. It is probably the one thing that gives me sanity in all of this is I know that they're OK, even if I have to come home. They're alright there, " Nan Beachem said.

And they're also all right at home, in a house full of love.

Nan Beachem says both kids have greatly impacted their older siblings. Many of them have chosen professions where they're able to help other children, including a teacher, a therapist, and even a nurse at UPM Children's, which is also where Kyree Beachem hopes to someday work.

"I either want to be a nurse or a child life specialist," Kyree Beachem said.

Because for the Beachem family, UPMC Children's Hospital is more than just a hospital.

Nan Beachem said, "Children's Hospital not only saved my kids' lives, but they gave my kids lives."

Lives that still have so much ahead of them. And now is your chance to help kids just like Kyree and Nico Beachem. Please join KDKA-TV on Thursday from 3 p.m. until 8 p.m. and donate to the Free Care Fund. Your donations help thousands of local children and their families every year, and we couldn't do it without you.