After Sadie fell at school and went through the complications from her broken fixator and serendipitous removal, her current 1st grade teacher reached out to me and suggested that she and Sadie's kindergarten teacher would like to plan a fundraising benefit for Sadie. We were so excited and thankful for their help and fast forward to March 25, it was a huge success!!!
There were 100 basket donations with amazing and extravagant prizes, approximately 300 people attended and such an energy of love and support in the room! The entire Hopkins staff took care of everything and worked as such a dedicated team to set up all of the baskets, register guests at the ticket table and overall produce the most organized and loving event. We were so touched by all of the support and will never forget our next step in the process, which will be her 2nd lengthening tentatively in 2019, is supported by everyone who either attended, donated or contributed in some way to this event!
A huge thank you to Bernadette Elam and Toni Grandini for planning it! Thank you to all of the Hopkins School staff for all of the help and support! A GoFundMe page has also been set up for people who could not attend but wanted to contribute and we wanted to send a huge thank you to everyone who contributed to that as well!
Jimmy and I gave speeches at the event thanking everyone. I read the poem, "Welcome to Holland" and was really thankful to have the chance to talk about Sadie's accomplishments so far and what we've learned in the process.
WELCOME TO HOLLAND
by
Emily Perl Kingsley.
Emily Perl Kingsley.
c1987 by Emily Perl Kingsley. All rights reserved
I am often asked to describe the experience of raising a child
with a disability - to try to help people who have not shared that
unique experience to understand it, to imagine how it would feel. It's
like this......
When you're going to have a baby, it's like planning a fabulous
vacation trip - to Italy. You buy a bunch of guide books and make your
wonderful plans. The Coliseum. The Michelangelo David. The gondolas in
Venice. You may learn some handy phrases in Italian. It's all very
exciting.
After months of eager anticipation, the day finally arrives. You pack
your bags and off you go. Several hours later, the plane lands. The
stewardess comes in and says, "Welcome to Holland."
"Holland?!?" you say. "What do you mean Holland?? I signed up for
Italy! I'm supposed to be in Italy. All my life I've dreamed of going to
Italy."
But there's been a change in the flight plan. They've landed in Holland and there you must stay.
The important thing is that they haven't taken you to a horrible,
disgusting, filthy place, full of pestilence, famine and disease. It's
just a different place.
So you must go out and buy new guide books. And you must learn a
whole new language. And you will meet a whole new group of people you
would never have met.
It's just a different place. It's slower-paced than Italy, less
flashy than Italy. But after you've been there for a while and you catch
your breath, you look around.... and you begin to notice that Holland
has windmills....and Holland has tulips. Holland even has Rembrandts.
But everyone you know is busy coming and going from Italy... and
they're all bragging about what a wonderful time they had there. And for
the rest of your life, you will say "Yes, that's where I was supposed
to go. That's what I had planned."
And the pain of that will never, ever, ever, ever go away... because the loss of that dream is a very very significant loss.
But... if you spend your life mourning the fact that you didn't get
to Italy, you may never be free to enjoy the very special, the very
lovely things ... about Holland.
A few pictures from the event:
Lastly, at each table I displayed a quote that has inspired us over the years at some point or another. Here are a few of my faves! Hope they inspire you too.
“It’s
important to remember that we all have magic inside us.”
-JK Rowling
“Where
there is no struggle, there is no strength.”
-Oprah Winfrey
“A
happy life consists not in the absence, but in the mastery of hardships.”
-Helen Keller
“May
your wings be strong. May they carry you
above the clouds and into the headwinds.
May they never falter. Not even
once.”
-Maleficent
“Imagination
is the only weapon in the war against reality.”
-Cheshire Cat, Alice in Wonderland
“The
braver you are,
the more you’ll see.”
-Coraline
“Venture
outside your comfort zone. The rewards
are worth it.”
-Rapunzel
“And above all, watch with glittering eyes
the whole world around you because the greatest secrets are always hidden in
the most unlikely places. Those who
don’t believe in magic will never find it.”
-Roald Dahl
“I
think the reason why I’m the person who I am today is because I went through
those tough times
when
I was younger.”
-LeBron James
If
your dreams don’t scare you, then they’re not big enough.
-Unknown
“Normality
is a paved road: it’s comfortable to walk on, but no flowers grow on it.”
-Vincent VanGogh
“There’s
the whole world
at
your feet.”
-Mary Poppins
“There are no mistakes, no
coincidences. All events are blessings given to us to learn from.”
-Elizabeth
Kubler Ross
“The
best thing to hold onto in life
is
each other.”
-Audrey Hepburn
Sometimes you have to find your own fairytale.
“Anyone
can give up; it’s the easiest thing in the world to do. But to hold it together when everyone else
would
understand if you fell apart, that’s true strength.”
-Christopher Reeves
“All of our dreams can come true if
we have the courage to pursue them.”
-Walt Disney
“She
was unstoppable, not because she did not have failures or doubts, but because
she continued on
despite
them.”
-Beau Taplin
A
bird sitting on a tree is never afraid of the branch breaking, because her
trust is not on the branch but on it’s own wings. Always believe in yourself.
“The very things that hold you down are going
to lift you up.”
-Timothy Mouse, Dumbo
“Courage
is more exhilarating than fear. And in
the long run,
it
is easier.”
-Eleanor Roosevelt
“You
may not always have a comfortable life and you will not always be able to solve
all the world’s problems at once but don’t ever underestimate the importance
you can have because history has shown us that courage can be contagious and
hope can take on a life of its own.”
-Michelle Obama
“All
you need is faith, trust, and a little pixie dust.”
-Peter Pan
“Even
miracles take a little time.”
-The Fairy Godmother
