Tonight's picture was taken on March 10, 2009. Mattie had low white blood cell counts, as a side effect of chemotherapy. Which was why he entered the child life playroom with a mask on, to protect himself from germs. But any time Mattie wanted to get out of his hospital room and interact with the outside world, I welcomed it. Frankly I never feared he would catch an infection (though that was a distinct possibility), mainly because his quality of life was always high on my radar scope. As Mattie's treatment went on, he became more and more closed off to people, and preferred isolation. Yet on science days, Mattie always perked up. He loved experimentation, getting messy, and learning about how things worked..... as this photo clearly depicted.
Quote of the day: We keep moving forward, opening new doors, and doing new things, because we're curious and curiosity keeps leading us down new paths. Walt Disney
As we are preparing for Mattie Miracle's upcoming Walk, I always seek feedback from our Walk committee on ideas. Especially ideas to promote the Walk and give it more visibility. I have found whether I like it or not, I have to really use social media to get the word out, and be creative in how you deliver this message multiple times!!! So the idea was presented to me that we needed a Twibbon for Facebook. To be perfectly honest, I had NO IDEA what a Twibbon even was. So that meant I had to do some research and pull Peter into this process. Peter is far more technologically savvy than me, and if something needs to be figured out, he is tech support for the Foundation. Together with his technological skills and my creative skills we are an interesting package.
So what is a twibbon (for those just like me)? It is basically a visual marketing and promotional campaign for Facebook and Twitter. Sounds good right? A way to market the Walk for free? Well naturally NOTHING is simple. To design a twibbon was HELL. If you look at the Facebook photos below you will see a commonality. They all have an orange ribbon border with our walk logo on it. Well that is a twibbon (like a campaign ribbon, that is added to a pre-existing photo). So we basically had to create the template, pay for it so that others could upload it to their facebook sites! It literally took us two days to learn the technology to create a twibbon, to then create it to fit the right dimensions of a Facebook profile photo, and then had to learn how to distribute the twibbon and help people upload the photo to their site (because even that part isn't intuitive)!!!
As of today, here are all our supporters who have changed over their Facebook profile photo to our twibbon! We are encouraging others to........
We also want people to know that you don't have to live in our area to participate in the Walk! We added a new option at registration... a virtual walker so you can help us raise funds to meet the psychosocial needs of children with cancer and their families anywhere in the Country!
The photos above belong to:
First row (left to right): Peter Brown, Ann Henshaw, Margy Jost, Peggy Elkind, Tina Lytle
Second row (left to right): Maria Santagada Smith, Mattie Miracle, Mary Rivera, Dawnee Giammittorio, Ali Sharkey
Third row (left to right): Barbara Anderson, Cathy Abid, Brian Sweet, Nancy Sweet, Janice Cohen
Fourth row (left to right): Sara Pula, Mary Doane, Ashley Johnson, Toni Johnson, Chris Gauris
Fifth row (left to right): Vicki, Tamra Bentson, Jane Pisano, Mike Doane, Cassandra Hostetler
To add our Twibbon to your Facebook page, go to:
http://twibbon.com/support/mattie-miracle-walk
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