Pancake Breakfast

Today we had the local pancake breakfast for Finley.  For 2 hours, our local mom's club and local girl scouts served food, sat people, collected money, and helped make this breakfast a huge success.

But before those 2 hours were several hours that the mom's put in for cooking the breakfast.  And before that was 6 months of preparation work that they did to pull this day off.

We live in a small town.  With only 2500 people.  And today, many of those people came out to support Finley and our family.  And on top of them, people from our church, our jobs, our schools - they were there too.

We were able to speak with many people about Finley and they had a chance to meet her.  I brailled everyone a bookmark.  We handed out information on LCA.  It was a wonderful morning.

In the end - we raised over $3100.

As always, we are floored by people's generosity and good will.  How they took a look at Finley's picture, or read her story, and knew that they wanted to come today and help.  And we are so glad they did.

Thank you to Salem's MOM's club, The Congregational Church of Salem (who donated their facility free of charge and all of the kitchen), and all the local businesses who donated the food, the utensils, the condiments.  Thank you to the girl scouts of Salem for volunteering all morning without complaint.  And thank you to every single person that came and ate, or couldn't come because of prior committments, but sent us a donation.

We are now $3100 closer to our $250,000 goal.  And that is HUGE.

Two sweet stories I wanted to share.  These two little kids:

They are a brother and sister, a Kindergartener and a First Grader at the school I work at.  The little girl and Finley are pen pals - they write each other notes each week, and draw pictures.  And every week, little "E" does chores around the house and earns a dollar and she gives that dollar to Finley's Fighters.  Every week.  She is 5.  Her brother does the same.  And today - today they walked in with $120 that they raised by baking cookies and sweets with their mom each week for the past couple of months and selling those sweets to family and friends.  And they brought every penny to Finley today.  Their mom should be SO PROUD of them.  I am so proud of them.  Finley is lucky to have these two in her life.

And this little girl?

This is Izzy.  Izzy is in Kindergarten at our local school.  When Finley started attending Kindergarten a few times a month this year, she took care of Finley while she was there.  Finley will tell people that Izzy is her best friend.  She talks about her non-stop.  Izzy's mom called me one day and said that Izzy understood about Finley now, and was very upset.  And today, Izzy and I talked and she told me how she doesn't want Finley to go blind.  So we talked about how much we are working to make sure that doesn't happen, but I told Izzy that no matter what, I know she will be there for Finley to make sure nothing bad happens to her.  And she said she would.  It was very sweet.  She followed Finley around the whole morning and took her where ever she needed to go with a gentle hand on her back.  And I got a glimpse into the future - of the friends Finley will have that will know exactly what she needs, and when it is just enough.  Thank you Izzy for being a great friend to our Finley.

And these are just a few examples of the great kids who love Finley.  And there are countless adults that love her just as much.  As I have said many times before, we are not alone.  We never feel alone.  And we will never be alone.