Friday, January 4, 2018

Friday, January 4, 2018

Tonight's picture was taken in December of 2002. It is hard to believe that Mattie was only 8 months in this photo and yet to me when I look at the photo, Mattie looks like he was older. One thing about Mattie was he was born fully on! He could do multiple tasks at one time and though he may have looked like he wasn't listening, he absorbed everything around him including conversation. 


Quote of the day: May all your troubles last as long as your New Year’s resolutions! ~ Joey Adams


Inovalon is a technology based company, located in Baltimore, MD. For four years now (since 2015), Inovalon has been a long term corporate sponsor of our Foundation. We found this Inovalon press release (below) on Facebook today and shared it with our Mattie Miracle supporters. How did we become connected with a publicly held company? Through our friend Kristen. In fact, I would say ALL of our sponsors are connected to us to one way or another through a friend or fellow supporter of the Foundation. As in my perspective fundraising is all about connections and very little is accomplished by cold calling individuals or businesses. 

I met Kristen (who is the second person from the right in this photo, she was standing next to me) on November 4, 2011. She was moderating a panel at The District of Columbia Pediatric Palliative Care Collaboration conference, a panel that Peter and I served on. On this panel we were asked all sorts of questions about Mattie's cancer battle as well as our grieving process. Keep in mind that Mattie had died about two years ago at that point. Just about the time when real emotions around the loss of a child tend to arise! Kristen is a social worker by profession and we enjoyed our interaction with her so much, that we invited her to our Symposium on Capitol Hill to moderate our parent panel (the photo was taken at the Mattie Miracle Symposium on March 21, 2012).   

It is hard to believe, but we are in our 8th year of knowing Kristen. We have kept in contact through the years, and it was Kristen who advocated for Inovalon to become a corporate sponsor of Mattie Miracle. Kristen's husband, Matt, works at Inovalon and he helped me make the appropriate connections to the company. The rest is history. Kristen is yet another example of the wonderful people Mattie left behind for me. When I reflect on many of my best relationships now, they were established in some shape or form through Mattie. I think that says volumes about both Mattie and the people who are captured by his life and story. 


Inovalon Announces Charitable Initiatives for 2018; Inovalon Drives Meaningful Impact through Charitable Giving Programs Serving Local and National Organizations:

https://globenewswire.com/news-release/2019/01/03/1680061/0/en/Inovalon-Announces-Charitable-Initiatives-for-2018.html?fbclid=IwAR26Qhqzjkjswk5jrpIneu67pehNfAUBjo88ue-asOTMHfuxca1y9Gq9G2Y