After the Fundraiser

I should have done another blog entry by now. It has been on my mind all day every day since people started showing up to help set up on Saturday morning. The problem is, I know I'm going to leave out some kind of thank you, or forget to mention someone. So, please don't be offended if I should thank you here and I don't. The honest truth is that while she was planning, Andrea took care of everything. This was not supposed to be hard work for me, which was the most wonderful thing she could have done. With that said, I honestly don't even know the names of some of the people who volunteered.

I hope that doesn't make me sound ungrateful. In fact, it's quite the opposite. While my friends and family worked extremely hard, and I will be forever grateful for their sacrifice, I am just as touched by the generosity of strangers. I am amazed that these people, who don't even know us, were willing to show up and spend their entire Saturday helping us. There were friends of friends of friends there. It was amazing.

Items kept coming in for donations all through the event. Beautiful crafts that must have taken so much time to make. Lots of baked goods. Jewelry. Feathers for the hair, and paint for the face. Massages. Monster Truck rides for the kids. Knives for sale. It came together so well.

The food was good, too! We were worried about the cookies, because we had wanted to get them all donated from a business, but the business we were hoping for donations from couldn't help us. So, we asked people to bake cookies, and there were plenty! The kids coming through the line would choose 2 or 3 of them, and there were still plenty of leftover cookies. The hot dogs were the best I have ever tasted!

There were lots of things left over, so I wanted everyone who donated to know what we're doing with them.

The bake sale items went with my sister, Melissa to Lehi. She lives in the cutest little neighborhood, and her back yard neighbor is a big farm with a peacock named Nigel who comes and tells her kids when it's bed time. In front of her house, the road is a dead end, and one of the neighbors across the street has enough property that they keep a small number of sheep. To the other side of her house is a huge park. Never could I choose a better location for a home! At the park there, they have lots and lots of soccer. She says it's pretty much all day every day. Hundreds of soccer moms and dads come and go with their kids. So, she took the bake sale items home with her. She said she thought they would be good at least until today. So yesterday, she had a table in her yard, and her kids walked around the park with a wagon. She says they were really cute, saying, "Bake sale for Leukemia." Sweet little stinkers!

The boutique items went home with my sister, Tonja. She lives just off of Redwood Road in-between the big light at 6200 So. and the freeway entrance. Behind the office buildings right at the freeway entrance, there's a gated community, which is where she lives. Out front, right on Redwood, there's a patch of grass that belongs to the HOA for her house. Next Saturday, she will be putting a few tables out. This is a really busy location, so we expect a lot of traffic. We also will have flyers soon if anyone wants them.

Some of the bigger ticket items were brought home with us or Andrea to either return to the person who donated or sell on Ebay.

The fundraiser was a smashing success! I know it was a little bit out of the way, and I'm so grateful for everyone who spent the time to find it. It was well worth it, and we will be able to pay off a lot of our bills with it, so thank you! I can never thank you all enough for that. Cancer is stressful enough without major financial problems adding to the list of issues.

I also have some ideas now for ongoing efforts to raise money. I will put more on the blog about it later, but they will be items that identify the buyers as supporters of Matthew, and we will sell them on the blog.

On a more personal note, I wish I could effectively convey the level of gratitude I feel for the people who did this for us. For me, this wasn't just about money. After Matthew's kidney stone, I was in a deep depression. It was so hard for me to see my baby boy in that kind of pain, and to know that it might not even have anything to do with his Cancer. It's just so unfair. I knew that being so depressed wasn't doing anyone any favors, and I was fighting to get out of it, but I was stuck. I couldn't find my way out, and I was starting to worry I never would. Then, I started to gather up donations, and I couldn't believe some of the stories that went with items that were donated. People are so amazing!

Then, Saturday came, and I saw all those people who were all there to help us. There was so much love and generosity! If we hadn't even made $100 it would have been worth all the effort because it was so uplifting. I am a new woman now. For that, I can never thank you all enough.

After the fundraiser, Matthew and I had another event to go to, believe it or not. It was called Light the Night. It's a fundraiser done by the Lymphoma and Leukemia Society every year. You set up teams and raise money to donate to them for research. They have a big event at the end of the fundraiser, and everyone there goes on a walk together. For every hundred dollars your team raises, you get a lit balloon, but everyone who walks gets a balloon - they just aren't all lit up. There are white balloons for survivors, gold balloons for anyone walking in honor of someone who died, and red balloons for supporters.

The teachers at Matthew's daycare, and one family in particular, the Johnsons, worked together to earn enough money for Matthew to have a lit balloon. He also got a t-shirt that says "Survivor" on the back. It's the first time anyone has referred to him as a survivor, and it made me cry, for the first time that day. Way to go, LLS! Anyway, we walked around Sugarhouse Park as it grew dark, and it was a very beautiful and uplifting experience.

Here's a video about what Light the Night has been able to accomplish.




Waking up Sunday morning, I should have been so exhausted, but I wasn't. I felt alive again. Full of energy. Happy. It was wonderful.

Thank you to everyone who helped us this weekend. You will never know how many parts of my heart you touched!!

Pictures to follow.