Fund Raising

I've been surfing the web and looking at things we could perhaps make (at smaller cost) and sell for profit to make funds for the 3-Day. I've looked at things like mailbox covers, lotion, and room deodorizers. What concerns me is that in another few weeks, kids will be fanning out over all the South selling everything from cookie dough to wrapping paper. I'm thinking that even though my personal preference is to give people an opportunity to buy something, it's probably better to just plain ask for a donation.

I'm thinking maybe we need to contact Wal-mart and see if they will allow us to solicit in a similar way to the Girl Scout cookie drive or those seeking homes for their puppies. Jenn is thinking we need to do a spaghetti supper. I think we can do both. Of course the method most commonly recommended is to e-mail everyone you've EVER known with information on how to do a donation. There is a link off my blog and many of my kind readers have already made generous donations. However, I alert you now that I'm likely to send everyone I ever knew an e-mail and be pretty overt about soliciting your help in fund raising. Go here. You are certainly welcome to go by and leave a donation of any size. Every dollar raised is a dollar I consider that is given to the research to find the cure for me, and the many women of sisterhood who come behind me. I recorded a special message yesterday at the event we went to, and it should come to me soon as e-mail. In it I say, that every dollar given is just as much for me, as it is for all the women who came before me and who come after me. I used the word "affliction," in my short spot and I kind of cringed inwardly at the use of that word. Somehow it seems archaic, like I'm talking about The Plague or Polio or something. Yet, upon reflection, breast cancer has definitely been an afliction in my life. It has meant pain, it has revised my body, it has stolen my peace of mind, it has created anxiety about the future, it has caused me great discomfort during treatment. Breast cancer has changed my whole life, and some of my anxiety revolves around the concept that it may well have been the diagnosis that will lead to my death. You can't escape that as a possibility. My treatments were aggressive and I hope that I will live long enough to earn back all the money I've paid into Social Security over a lifetime! But I won't know that. I just have to live like it is so, until I'm told it isn't so.

I feel like I need to hook up my old computer and use the e-mail guide inside it to get e-mail addy's from years and years of connections for that e-mail solicitation. I hate to have to get back into the older, more cranky computer though. I do need to get some more pictures transferred to the new computer though.

Peace to you and those you love. Many thanks to all who have already given. Please get your friends, family and colleagues at work to go to Jenn's page and make even a $1 donation. All dollars help in the fight to find a cure. It's not a cure for something like polio. It's a cure for lots and lots of diseases. Breast cancer as we know now, comes in lots and lots of varieties. My kind is more resistant to treatment, but fortunately my cancer was caught early. There are at LEAST nine kinds of cancer with many, many treatment approaches that are customized to those various kinds of breast cancer. All women (and men) who are afflicted with this terrible disease need to know that science is fighting for our lives.