Tonight's picture was taken in March of 2005. We took Mattie to Bunnyland at Butler's Orchard in Maryland that weekend. Mattie loved visiting the farm. Jumping in piles of hay and taking a real hay wagon ride around the property. Bunnyland had many activities for the children, including an Easter egg hunt. I would have to say that Mattie enjoyed the hunt more than eating what was inside of the eggs. As my faithful readers know, Mattie did not love sweets like his mom.
Quote of the day: Luck is a dividend of sweat. The more you sweat, the luckier you get. ~ Ray Kroc
I strongly believe in Ray Kroc's quote. Especially as it applies to Mattie Miracle. As whatever we have achieved we worked for it, it wasn't just handed to us. As Peter says, "you are always working!" Which is quite accurate, it is the beauty and the treachery of running your own business.
Tomorrow, we are flying to Atlanta to attend the American Psychosocial Oncology Society (APOS) conference. APOS is not a stranger to us, as Mattie Miracle had the honor of meeting it's founder, Dr. Jimmie Holland (the grandmother of psycho-oncology) and to also host two psychosocial standard think tanks at their conferences. This year, we are headed to the conference because of a new initiative we started.
Mattie Miracle and APOS partnered together to offer implementation of the Psychosocial Standards grants. Certainly Mattie Miracle could have started its own research grant making program, but I figured it made sense to tie our grants into a professional association. Therefore the association could help us advertise the grants and also provide the subject matter expertise to evaluate the proposals. In total, we gave $40,000 this year to APOS members in research grants. Rather impressive, considering this was our first year granting money in this capacity. We literally received 26 amazing research proposals from all over the country, of which we landed up funding 6.
We have paid for all six of our grant recipients to attend the APOS conference in Atlanta and to present their research in a Mattie Miracle symposium. In addition, on Thursday, we are taking part in the association's awards ceremony, as Mattie Miracle is highlighting our $10,000 grant recipient with an award. So next time you hear from me, it will be from Georgia.
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