Mattie Miracle Walk 2023 was a $131,249 success!

Mattie Miracle Cancer Foundation Promotional Video

Thank you for keeping Mattie's memory alive!

Dear Mattie Blog Readers,

It means a great deal to us that you take the time to write to us and to share your thoughts, feelings, and reflections on Mattie's battle and death. Your messages are very meaningful to us and help support us through very challenging times. To you we are forever grateful. As my readers know, I promised to write the blog for a year after Mattie's death, which would mean that I could technically stop writing on September 9, 2010. However, at the moment, I feel like our journey with grief still needs to be processed and fortunately I have a willing support network still committed to reading. Therefore, the blog continues on. If I should find the need to stop writing, I assure you I will give you advanced notice. In the mean time, thank you for reading, thank you for having the courage to share this journey with us, and most importantly thank you for keeping Mattie's memory alive.


As Mattie would say, Ooga Booga (meaning, I LOVE YOU)! Vicki and Peter



The Mattie Miracle Cancer Foundation celebrates its 7th anniversary!

The Mattie Miracle Cancer Foundation was created in the honor of Mattie.

We are a 501(c)(3) Public Charity. We are dedicated to increasing childhood cancer awareness, education, advocacy, research and psychosocial support services to children, their families and medical personnel. Children and their families will be supported throughout the cancer treatment journey, to ensure access to quality psychosocial and mental health care, and to enable children to cope with cancer so they can lead happy and productive lives. Please visit the website at: www.mattiemiracle.com and take some time to explore the site.

We have only gotten this far because of people like yourself, who have supported us through thick and thin. So thank you for your continued support and caring, and remember:

.... Let's Make the Miracle Happen and Stomp Out Childhood Cancer!

A Remembrance Video of Mattie

April 30, 2016

Saturday, April 30, 2016

Saturday, April 30, 2016



Tonight's picture was taken in April of 2003. Mattie was a year old and beginning to toddle around. He loved the coffee table, because it was an excellent prop and helped him maneuver his way around while holding it. Years later I took a photo of Mattie and had him hold up this toddler photo next to him. I can't think about one of these photos without the other. They seem like a pair to me. 
This photo was taken (May 2006) about three years after the one above. Mattie always got a kick out of seeing himself as both a baby and a toddler. 

















Quote of the dayThe way a team plays as a whole determines its success. You may have the greatest bunch of individual stars in the world, but if they don't play together, the club won't be worth a dime. ~ Babe Ruth


It was a FULL working day for both Peter and me. I am happy to say that the raffle baskets for the Walk are NOW COMPLETE. We wrapped them today, I created raffle ticket boxes for people to place their tickets into, as well as raffle placards explaining what is in each basket. We are featuring 9 great raffle baskets this year and tickets to earn a chance at winning one of these raffle items can be found on our Walk Website: https://mmcf.dojiggy.com/ng/index.cfm/aa27806/regCatalog/products/?p=ad142620


Here is a close up of the 9 Raffle baskets. These baskets cover everything from gift cards to museums. 

1) Washington Nationals Tickets
2) Washington Capitals Tickets
3) Dining Around Town
4) Lego Collectibles
5) Lights, Camera, Drama
6) Wine of the Month
7) Money Tree
8) One of a kind t-shirt quilt
9) iPad Mini 2






Meanwhile, as I was home contending with the raffle, Peter went to Alexandria to conduct a building project with a Girl Scout troop at Mattie's school. The Girl Scouts asked to work with us because the Troop needed to build something to qualify for their Bronze Award. 


Peter began construction on 6 corn hole boards (like a bean bag toss) last weekend. We are having a tournament at the Walk and therefore needed to have the boards. However, purchasing them is quite costly. So we decided to make them from scratch. All I can say is WOW! You have to know what you are doing to take on such a project, and fortunately Peter is skilled in this area. But I can say that round 1 of building took all of last week. 

Today, Peter transported all the corn hole boards, legs, and bases he created to Alexandria, VA. To the girl scout troop leader's house. Fortunately Peter had a strategy in mind about how the girls were going to assemble the remaining parts of the table and then paint them. Having such an organized plan was crucial given the age group.... teens. I am not sure if my readers have experience working with teen girls, but they aren't an easy group to work with and Peter learned this first hand. Girls are much more emotionally complicated than boys and I have a feeling if a boy scout troop was asked to take on this project, the day would have gone differently. But Peter handled it beautifully and frankly did better than I would have under these circumstances. Even when I taught young adults in college, I had little tolerance for disinterest and goofing around. If one did not want to listen and be in my class, I would have preferred they just left rather than disrupt an entire classroom with their agenda. Teenage girls are not very different in my perspective and unless they want to do something and are motivated to do it, they most likely won't and would prefer to socialize. Which can make the completion of the assembly of six corn hole boards difficult!



Peter worked with six girls today and four other dads. 














Here is one of the girl scouts, Tori being assisted by a dad. Peter set up different work stations so groups could work on an entire corn hole board from start to completion. 







Here were the painting
stations!







The final product, so far! Next weekend they will paint and design them! 

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