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

March 18, 2018

Sunday, March 18, 2018

Sunday, March 18, 2018

Tonight's picture was taken in March of 2009. Mattie was going through his chicken tender and french fry phase. When I say a phase, it was a very short time period as Mattie's tastes and food needs changed practically week to week. So for example one week he would want nothing else but chicken tenders and then the following week, he neither wanted to see or smell a chicken tender. Because Mattie lost an incredible amount of weight on treatment, we felt Mattie could have anything he wanted to eat. We just were motivated to see him eating something. The somethings ranged from Utz potato chips (he would eat NO other brand), vanilla shakes, shrimp (of all things!), Dunkin Donuts (vanilla frosted with rainbow sprinkles), and cupcakes. There are a lot of people hung up on nutrition while undergoing treatment. As you can see nutrition and a balanced diet were not even on my top ten list for Mattie. As the number one priority was getting him to consume any sort of calorie we could get into him. 


Quote of the day: The best philanthropy is not just about giving money but giving leadership. The best philanthropists bring the gifts that made them successful—the drive, the determination, the refusal to accept that something can't be done if it needs to be—into their philanthropy. Tony Blair


I am no stranger to the Christmas Tree Shops. Why? Because there are many in Massachusetts and I have had the fun of going shopping there while living in Boston, or when visiting Peter's parents. 

Several years ago, we learned that a Christmas Tree Shops came to Waldorf, MD. It takes us about 50 minutes to drive to this store each way, but it is our yearly ritual. 

The Christmas Tree Shops is a discount home-goods chain offering seasonal decor year-round, plus furniture, kitchen items, and gifts. This is where Peter and I find all the the filler items for our raffle baskets. Not to mention the actual baskets. You can't believe how much you can buy there at a reasonable price. Which is why we make the venture every year. 

We are featuring 10 raffle baskets this year at the Walk & Family Festival. After today's large shop, I would say 7 out of 10 baskets are ready to be staged. This was our cart at the check out line. We literally had the cart filled to the brim! 

Typically we go on this adventure in April. But we are trying to do everything a bit earlier this year, so I am not scrambling in April into May. As it takes a lot of planning and leg work to make the Walk a reality. 
It's that time of year when Mattie's room starts getting transformed or overwhelmed by Walk items. I have already begun to stage the raffle baskets so I can see what is missing and needs attention. 
We have a brand new basket this year entitled, "Wish Upon a Star." We solicited Walt Disney World, and they graciously are donating four Park Hopper Passes to Disney World to us. 

These passes will provide the recipients with a magical experience of visiting all of Disney's theme parks in ONE DAY: the Magic Kingdom® Park, Epcot®, Disney's Hollywood Studios®, and Disney's Animal Kingdom®. They may not be used for admission from December 25-31 of any year, through their expiration date (which is in two years).

When I was visiting my parents in Los Angeles, I literally bought Disney items at the airport to add to this basket. As Anaheim, CA is the home of Disneyland. So this basket is turning out to be very cute and I hope there will be ticket takers, since the price of these four tickets to Disney are worth around $700!

1 comment:

Margy Jost said...

Vicki, I love seeing & hearing about the basket preparations. I am so psyched once again for the walk on May 20th. I believe MMCCF will do very well again this year. I am excited to be planning my participation with TEAM KIMBER who truly believed psychosocial support was so important. It guided her in her nursing skills. She could work with kids, earn their trust, get their cooperation by always acknowledging how hard this all was for them & telling them she believed, they could do it - swallow the many pills, get the shot, get accessed. Kimber worked to know each chikd which is why we became friends. We both knew the importance of knowing a child/teen as they were not as just a patient with Cancer.
I AM LOOKING SO FORWARD TO MATTIE's walk and honoring the memory of my friend who understood chemo alone isn't enough