When I was twelve or so my friend Peggy and I, and a handful of neighborhood friends, staged a backyard carnival to raise money for Cystic Fibrosis. Remember those kits you could send away for back in the 70s? The Muscular Dystrophy Association and Jerry Lewis enlisted children to help make a difference. We borrowed one of those kits and put our own spin on it and made it happen. I clearly remember riding our bikes to the local businesses soliciting for freebies to offer as prizes. We got keychains and pens from the bank, a ball and bat and glove from Ben Franklin, some bags of penny candy from the grocery store….I believe we raised something like $27 from the nickel and dime donations we collected for the games and fortune telling and face paintings. We mailed all the loose change in an envelope to the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation. A few weeks later we were sent a thank you letter and a dozen CF collar pins. I WAS SURE THEY WOULD SOON FIND A CURE AFTER RECEIVING OUR ENORMOUS CONTRIBUTION.
Looking back now I think that event gave each participant a different perspective of HOPE. My parents must have been touched that we thought about taking on the disease with the belief we could help. My sister must have known we really loved her. We carnival-throwing-kids were confident that our $$$ could be used for research for a cure. But imagine what it must have been like at the CF Foundation office that morning when the mail arrived with a letter written by a 12 year old offering $27 in coins to present to the lab in hopes that a cure would be identified. Imagine that. There HAD to be a ripple effect don't you think? And while a cure wasn't discovered in Shannon's lifetime there were alot of breakthroughs including the invention of the "vest" which not only allowed a CF patient to be independent in their daily bronchial drainage therapies, but it was developed by my sister's doctor, and she was a recipient of a prototype model.
All I can say is I never expected this. I never anticipated that the sock request would get such an incredible response and I never saw it coming that there would be spin-off things occuring – like the sharing of stories. Stories of loss, stories of health, stories of inspiration, motivation, encouragement. The ripple effect is amazing. The people I have heard from are amazing. This whole thing is utterly amazing. There are some things I will share with you but some things will just have to stay in my head and my heart.
THANK YOU for winking at me. THANK YOU for sharing your stories. To begin…in my home mailbox were these, from a neighbor friend who I didn't know read my blog….
And then these from the post office box………..
And I'm off to pick up the mail at the post office today….then tune in on the Street Team blog where I'll be posting the next challenge later today. It's only been two days of mail at my post office and we have already passed the 65 pairs goal. And I can already feel the goodness that is being spread through the ripple effect that started last week. There are still ten more days to go. Wow!!!
xoxo
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