Tonight's picture was taken in December of 2008. Mattie was in the clinic getting his experimental immunotherapy treatment. Within an hour of an infusion, Mattie usually became ill with a fever and so exhausted that he couldn't keep his head up. That day, Santa and Mrs. Claus came to the clinic to visit with the children. Linda (Mattie's child life specialist) came in with the Clauses, and together they showered Mattie with all the gifts he loved! From Legos to remote control airplanes! When Santa came into the room, Mattie's head was resting on the pillow in his lap. Mattie tried desperately to keep his head up long enough for this photo. After Santa left the room, Mattie's head collapsed back down on the pillow.
Quote of the day: Christmas gift suggestions: To your enemy, forgiveness. To an opponent, tolerance. To a friend, your heart. To a customer, service. To all, charity. To every child, a good example. To yourself, respect. ~ Oren Arnold
While Peter and I were in Boston this week, I received an email from one of our new corporate sponsors. They were looking to feature Mattie Miracle at their January management meeting. To fulfill this request they wanted us to send them a ONE MINUTE video about the Foundation.... who we are, why we developed the Foundation, and what we do and accomplish. That is a lot to manage in one minute, which is why the final video is two minutes long. One has to be very succinct even in two minutes.
Creating such a promotional video takes a lot of brain power, creativity, and time. Of course when it is emotional content for us, which makes it equally challenging. We couldn't work on this video during Christmas time and because Peter and I are going out of town this coming Tuesday, there was a great deal of pressure on us to develop this video today.
Peter and I have different skills and our work styles are different when it comes to taking on a task of this magnitude. Yet we found a way today to have a meeting of the minds, to brainstorm, and then develop. Thankfully Peter is also technologically savvy and was able to identify software that we could use to create a video. Creating a video was a FIRST for us! However, I am a big Barry Manilow fan, and to me his song.... I am your child, is truly touching and captures the essence of how important a child is to a family. Which is why I knew we had to download that song and insert it into the video. I did not want generic music, or music that came with the video making software.
I will let you look at the promotional video and decide for yourself if the music works. I feel the timing and the emotions it evokes were exactly what I was hoping for. Though creating such a video in one day wasn't easy, I am so happy that our corporate sponsor suggested we do this and of course that we are given the opportunity to showcase the video in their management meeting.
The "Who is Mattie Miracle" video:
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