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Tyranny of the Urgent

4 Oct

I’m beating myself up right now because I allowed something to happen that I could have easily prevented. I purchased the domain name for SammyYammy.com the summer of 2003 when he was only a few months old, and over the years, I had renewed the domain registration before it expired.

This time when the domain renewal notices came (and there were many of them filling my inbox), I was complacent and busy with other urgent activities in my life, and I just kept putting it off. Yesterday, I finally took a moment and made myself sit down and take care of the renewal. Today, I am filled with regret because SammyYammy.com is now owned by someone other than me, and I only have myself to blame.

I haven’t lost any of the information I had stored at the site because I had transferred it all to this WordPress page (SammyYammy.wordpress.com), but the domain is gone unless the current owner agrees to sell it back to me or the current owner doesn’t renew the domain within the next 12 months.

Even though I didn’t update it as often as I had hoped over the years, Sammy’s website was and is one of the most important things to me. Instead of forcing myself to step outside of the whirlwind of urgent tasks and obligations, I continued to allow a truly important thing to be shoved farther down the list. As I look down the list, the sad reality is that there are way too many other important things–needs, people, tasks–that have slipped to the bottom. That’s gonna change starting now!

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Brackets For Good

7 Mar

imageFamilies for HoPE was recently selected to participate in a unique online fundraising competition by an Indianapolis organization known as Brackets For Good. Think of the March Madness college basketball bracket of 64 teams, but instead of teams, there are 64 nonprofit organizations competing to score points (raise dollars) in a single-elimination tournament.

Last week as we embarked on our very-first Brackets For Good tournament, we weren’t sure quite what to expect, but we had hope for a respectable showing. With the support and generosity of many, we scored more points than our Round 1 opponent (American Diabetes Association of Indiana). Half of the 64 organizations were eliminated after the first round, and Families for HoPE is one of 32 organizations remaining in the tournament!

We are extremely excited to advance to Round 2; however, we have our work cut out for us. Our opponent is Joseph Maley Foundation, and in addition to being a seasoned veteran in the Brackets For Good tournament, Joseph Maley Foundation was the 2015 runner-up for the entire tournament in Indianapolis! No doubt, they are seeking to return to the final round in 2016 and finish their task of capturing the championship (and the $10,000 cash prize).

We need your help if we want to make it through to the Sweet 16! You may be familiar with the term “Cinderella Team”. Merriam-Webster dictionary defines a “Cinderella” team as:

  • someone or something that is ignored but that deserves attention or credit.
  • someone or something (such as a sports team) that is not expected to do well but that succeeds or wins in a very exciting way.

Families for HoPE goes into this round as the Cinderella team! Everything about HPE fits the definition of a Cinderella team.

  • The odds of a fetus with HPE surviving to birth is only 3%.
  • Of that 3%, very few survive to six months of age.
  • Did you know that HPE is the most common brain malformation in a developing fetus occurring between days 17 and 21 of fetal development? It generally causes early miscarriage. If you or someone you know experienced a miscarriage in the earliest stage of pregnancy, it very well could have been due to HPE.
  • Medical statistics are what they are, and physicians are unable to offer parents much hope following a diagnosis of HPE.
  • Parents are warned of their child’s future inability to walk, talk, eat, learn, grow, breathe.

We know that HPE is a common but not widely-known condition . . . “Something that is ignored but that deserves attention or credit.”

Our kiddos (and even teens and adults) with HPE are truly the all-star players on our Cinderella team who “are not expected to do well but they succeed or win in a very exciting way.” Every breath, every smile, every day!

Our goal is to raise funds for our 2016 Family Conference on Holoprosencephaly, but we know that this Brackets For Good tournament is a very good platform for raising awareness of HPE as Families for HoPE and the children we serve are able to share our Cinderella story far and wide. Won’t you please make a donation now and share this message with your family, friends, neighbors, co-workers and others so that they can help our fairy-tale story come true?

How do I donate?

Click here to donate! (100% of funds will go to Families for HoPE)

To view the entire bracket, click here

Strength . . .

1 May
I’ve been thinking about this photo all day. It was a Polaroid taken on May 1, 2003 by Sammy’s neonatal ICU nurse, Cathy Firestone. On that date, Sammy was three weeks old, and two weeks into battling an overwhelming infection and a perforation of his intestines. I spent hours each day at his bedside praying that he would survive, and while he was heavily sedated and ventilated, I spent those two weeks waiting for him to open his eyes to show us that the worst was over.
Early that morning before we arrived, Cathy caught Sammy opening his eyes, so she grabbed a camera and had this photo waiting for me near Sammy’s bed. It will always be one of my treasures. While it’s easy to look at the photo and see how weak he looked, I see his strength because I know just how much he overcame.

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