Tonight's picture was taken at the Mattie March in 2009. Mattie and his lower head of school, Bob Weiman (aka the Magic Man) were performing a new trick together. The trick was called Peanut Butter Boogers. The title and the content was right up Mattie's alley. Bob understood that Mattie was feeling vulnerable and different while fighting cancer. So through magic, Bob taught Mattie unique skills which Mattie took pride in and made him feel good about himself and special. Mattie entertained many nurses with his tricks! At today's Foundation Walk, Bob hosted a magic show, as he graciously does each year with his fifth graders. During the show, my 11 year old friend, Katharina, performed "Mattie's" peanut butter booger trick. Katharina was honored to do this, and it seemed rather symbolic that Mattie's memory was captured in this way.
Quote of the day: To live in hearts we leave behind is not to die. ~ Thomas Campbell
It is 12:30am, and I am trying to answer emails, download pictures, and now write the blog after a very successful Foundation Walk. For Peter and I, and our logistics team, the day started extremely early. In fact, the set up for the event took about five hours. This was with a whole team of experienced people and volunteers. We are SO grateful to Mattie's school for allowing us to host this event on their campus and also for allowing us access to their school equipment and outstanding facility staff. We could never have accomplished what we did without Johnny, Larry, and Dave!
There were around 400 people in attendance today and despite the weather extremes (intense sun and then rain), the Walk went on without a hitch. Our Faces of Hope were remarkable and gave powerful speeches and the Faces of Hope posters were awe inspiring. In fact, as the crowd of walkers approached our "walk of hope" and observed the 26 faces of childhood cancer survivors, you could see the visual impact on their faces. This was the exact outcome I wished to achieve. I will continue to share more pictures with you and stories about the walk over the next couple of days. But at the moment I am mentally and physically drained.
We thank all of our amazing volunteers and of course thank our contributors. It is THANKS to you and your generosity that our financial goal to raise $20,000 to support the childlife program at Georgetown University Hospital has become a reality. Here are five pictures taken today, to give you a feeling for the spirit of the event!
Lauren, our Face of Hope, featured her beautiful hand crafted duct tape hair bows. Her two friends, Katie and Colleen travelled with Lauren from Pennsylvania to support her and to help her sell the bows. The bows were a huge success!
I will show you a completed picture of this Lego mosaic soon, but I wanted you to get the feeling for the magnitude of this project. Our fine Lego volunteers designed a mosaic of our logo out of 23,000 Lego bricks. Participants at the walk had the opportunity to build this mosaic and add pieces to it! It was amazing to watch this creation develop over four hours. We sincerely thank Liz Cortes, the assistant manager of the Lego store at the Tyson's Galleria, and all her volunteers for the incredible work and devotion they have for childhood cancer.
When we got home this evening, we had quite a lot to dig through, to reorganize, and pack away. It took us hours and fortunately Karen, my lifetime friend, is used to our post-walk clean out. She worked right along side us and got important tasks done.
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