What Happened Over Our Summer Vacation....

Hi Guys!!  I know it's been a while since I've posted anything about LL4K, so sorry about that.  I'm sure you are all desperate for news!  :)

In case you are not following the Luke's Lids Facebook page, September is Pediatric Cancer Awareness Month.  On our Facebook page, we have been sharing stories of children, their parents, and their physicians, who are fighting or who have fought this monster that is cancer.  If you haven't checked any of them out, I encourage you to do so.  We also wanted to do a gift card fundraiser for the parents staying at our local Ronald McDonald House so if you are interested in participating please message us at lukeslidsforkids@gmail.com (which incidentally is also our new email).

So what happened over our summer vacation....well it started with a box of hats that were delivered to the St. Jude's Hospital Midwest Affiliate in Peoria, IL in honor of our Grandma Schaller who passed away this spring after a battle with COPD.  Probably the most meaningful donation we have made because it was done in her honor.  Next up was a donation and visit to Special Days Camp in Michigan.  I LOVE Special Days but I think you probably all already know this, I have spoken about the wonderful work of Special Days on many occasions.  It was such an honor to be able to get back out to Special Days this summer with my boys!  We visited during Partners Week which is the week designated for the siblings of children fighting cancer.  My boys had a blast and it has made me think that maybe I want to start working during camp again, but we will see!  I'll keep you posted!  :)  Last, but certainly not least, LL4K made a donation to an event in Kansas City called Every Day A Hero which was for the children and families who receive treatment at the children's oncology clinic in Kansas City.  It was hosted by a mom, Beth Walker, whose son has received treatment there and she wanted to be able to do something to give back.  It was such an honor to be a part of this event and from the looks of the pictures it had an amazing turn out!  I'm sure the kids and their families had a wonderful and very blessed time!

Now that we are headed into the fall our donation bin is pretty well dried up at the moment...sadly.  But, never fear I'm sure that we will be on our way to filling it back up again.  It has seemed to work out that every time I feel like this project cannot continue, I receive an email from someone wanting to help in some way.  You all, our supporters, are God's hands in this work.

This fall, we will be hosting a hat making extravaganza for a number of Confirmation Candidates at my son's school.  They will be bringing and decorating hats and headbands to be donated just in time for Halloween! If you are interested in donating to this event (supplies or hats) please send me a message (lukeslidsforkids@gmail.com).  This is also a great time to bring up an idea; since school is back in full swing, if you know of a youth group, scout troop, or other organization that is looking for a new service project why not mention LL4K!  We would love to help you set up a hat making extravaganza!  If you are local to North Branch, MI or Chicago, IL we could even send a representative from LL4K to your event to help you host and facilitate it!  We had 2 different scout troops do this for us last year and the hats were magnificent and so creative!  Any questions send me a message at lukeslidsforkids@gmail.com.

Thanks again friends for all the love and support!!  We love our kids and we love our supporters and feel so blessed to be able to continue this work of creating smiles and building awareness for childhood cancer!  Any questions or ideas please feel free to contact us at lukeslidsforkids@gmail.com.  God Bless!!

Mid Summer Report

Wow, is it really the middle of July already??  Where in the heck did the summer go?!  Well for LL4K middle of July means a couple of very important deadlines are coming up fast!!  First up we have Special Days Camp  - we will be supplying them with 100 hats for their youngest campers!  I am busily getting to work embellishing the hats that I have right now and hopeful that we will be getting enough donations in the mail to complete our order!  I'm also hoping that I may be able to take my family up to Special Days for one of the days as we have been invited to come and hang out!  I haven't been to Special Days since I was a camp counselor last, about 13 years ago so I am hoping to get this worked out.  I would love for my kids to have the opportunity to spend some time with the Special Days kids as they are an amazing bunch for sure!!  :)

Next up, we will be donating hats to an event on August 25th in Kansas City called Every Day A Hero.  This is a party planned by the mom of a young boy who has battled an immune disease for the patients and families of children receiving hematology and oncology services in the Kansas City area.  They are expecting 150 families so we have a huge order to fill for this awesome project!  If you are on Facebook please check them out!
https://www.facebook.com/EveryDayAHeroKansasCity

I'm not looking too far ahead of these two projects as they are both pretty big orders to fulfill but we will do it!  Somehow, someway we always make our goals and I have no doubts we will be able to do that again!  I'm really grateful for all the help, all the support, and all the love for this project.  It's just a small thing but it's a small thing being done with great love!

One other small note...my personal email was hijacked last month so Luke's Lids for Kids has a new email - lukeslidsforkids@gmail.com

Please feel free to contact me if you know of a project we could help support or a child who could use a funky hat or two.  Thanks again and God Bless!!

Summer is a comin'!

So I write that Summer is a comin' because today certainly did NOT feel summer like, ugh!  I'm so ready for days in a row that are 70 degrees and above!  Anyways, that is my only real complaint for the day!  :)

Now for the good stuff!  I am sending out a packing to Children's Hospital of Illinois, the St. Jude's Midwest Affiliate Hospital, this week full of hats and headbands that were collected by my family during my Grandmother's Memorial Mass.  The previous post was all about her and the amazing life she shared with my Grandpa and so in her honor my family brought hats and headbands for Luke's Lids to send to St. Jude's.  St. Jude's Children's Hospital is a place that held a special spot in my Grandma's heart and so it seemed only appropriate that these hats go to the children there.  It is a blessing to be able to donate these hats in honor of my Grandma, Rosemary Schaller. We love and miss her dearly but know she is rejoicing being reunited with my Grandpa!

Luke's Lids is also planning to donate the hats that were made by North Branch Brownie and Cub Scouts groups next week to Lurie Children's Hospital in Chicago.  We are also planning to again donate hats to the Special Days Summer Camp at the end of July, so we will be working towards getting donations for those wonderful children!  That is always a big donation so if you feel called to donate, we would be greatly appreciative!

I do not think I have mentioned this previously but I was emailed by the mom of a young woman named Kylie who for her birthday asked her friends to bring hats to donate for Luke's Lids instead of bringing birthday presents for her.  I just wanted to take a moment to give Miss Kylie another Thank You!!  You are a blessing to Luke's Lids Kylie!  The hats she sent will make a lot of kids feel quite stylish I am sure!!

I think that is about all the news that I have to report at this time.  Just wanted to give you a quick update as to what was going on with Luke's Lids.  We are working on a couple of different events, one of which is confirmed and that is a hat making event with the youth group at my local church for the 8th grade Confirmation Candidates to receive service hours.  The other event I am still in the process of working on but will share the details if and when it works out.

Thank you again for all the support of Luke's Lids!  We love being able to bring about a little bit of sunshine and fun into the lives of children fighting cancer.  The deserve only the best we can offer, truly.  Please remember to continue to pray for those children and their families.  Living with cancer in your life alters the way you see life and I can only speak as the sister of a cancer survivor but I know that it really teaches you to let go of the silly stuff and instead try to be just be silly!  A smile can go a long way to making a difficult day a little better!  Hugs friends and God Bless!!

Look at what we started!

This blog is supposed to be about Luke's Lids for Kids happenings but today I want to tell you a love story because this is how I process things, I tend to write about them.

This is a story that begins with a man named Lynwood and woman named Rosemary, who met and fell in love and had a daughter Debbie, then went on to have five more children (3 boys and 3 girls).  Those six children went on to grow up and marry the loves of their lives and start their own families.  In all, 24 grandchildren were born and those grandchildren have started having families of their own and 15 great-grandchildren have been born thus far (many more are to come I am sure of this).  Not included in these extraordinary numbers are all the people who have married into this family and so far that number stands at 12.  If you are keeping count that's 57 people (and counting) who have come into this family all because 2 people, Lynwood and Rosemary, fell in love more than 50 years ago.

My Grandpa, Lynwood, he passed away almost 4 year ago after a long battle with Multiple Sclerosis although to know him was to know that MS was not who he was, MS was the part of his life that made for some inconveniences and gave him material for laughing about things in life (especially how nice the WalMart greeters were to people who came into the store on an amigo cart!).  His quality of life was so wonderful because of my Grandma, Rosemary.  Grandpa never spent a day in a nursing home or had any of his care done by in-home nurses.  His care was lovingly provided by his Rosie.  She told me after he died that it was easy to be his caretaker because she loved him so much that it wasn't even a decision she had to make, it's just what you do when you love someone.  After he died, Grandma had to relearn how to live her life and she did.  Grandma and Grandpa's dog Clyde spent their days together, Grandma whipping up amazing dinners in a moment and Clyde getting the leftovers (lucky dog).  Then last year, Grandma because really very ill and suddenly things were different.  Clyde who had been by Grandpa's side from the time he came to live with them came to live with me because Grandma had bring an oxygen machine home to aid her breathing, as you see, she suffered from COPD.  The hospital who was caring for her last year sent her home to die but they did not know her or her strength.  She worked so hard to get better and she did, little by little, her strength returned and her vitality returned.  But you see, the thing about Grandma is death does not scare her.  She is a woman of EXTRAORDINARY faith in God, she prays the scriptural rosary daily multiple times a day, she and my Grandpa went to Eucharistic Adoration faithfully for years (as I well remember being dragged to church on Fridays nights with them to pray before any sleepover fun could be had), and going to Mass is just who they are.  So the idea of death being scary was not something she believed.  She told me when my other grandparents passed away that Heaven was more beautiful now and that God just needed them there, because her faith in God is greater than anything else.

Tonight Heaven has become even more beautiful.  She was surrounded by her children as it should be and I know that Grandpa is there beside her smiling at all the love surrounding them.  I emailed my 5 year old son Jonah's preschool teacher the other day to tell her what was going on and ask if she had any book recommendations to help explain this to him as Jonah is quite close to Grandma and she gave me the name of a book called The Invisible String.  So first thing I went out and bought this book and attempted to read it to Jonah.  It's not a story about death so much as it's a story about the love between people.  It talks about how everyone we love has an invisible string between them and the love you feel travels along this string no matter how life separates you.  It's a profound message.  As I started thinking about this message it lead me back to what Grandma and Grandpa started.  All these children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren...that's a whole lot of strings and you know what happens when all those strings cross and cris  cross each other, you create a net.  This is why, in our lives, even when things are difficult or hurt, we never truly fall.  Grandma and Grandpa have given us a net to fall into, a net that is held together with love.  How amazing is this, because they loved each other so very much the legacy they have left us with is the knowledge that no matter how hard our lives get, we will never be alone without love because they are leaving us with the greatest of safety nets at which they are the center.  That is an extraordinary gift my friends and I feel so privileged that I am one of the lucky ones who gets to be held up by this net, especially right now.

So you see this is a love story. Love between a man and a woman, love between children and parents, and love for God.  There are so many lessons I've learned from my Grandparents, so many things gifts they have left us with, but this story must come back today to my Grandma.  Another very wise woman yesterday said to my dad, this time is the process the soul goes through to separate from the body in preparation for that journey to Heaven. I was present when my other Grandma made her journey to Heaven and I remember thinking "where's the boom, where's the thunder, something to recognize this amazing person is gone to Heaven" but I now know that the recognition must happen in Heaven itself, a celebration of that soul coming home.  I'm sure Jesus will be waiting with open arms for Grandma and will get the second hug from her (I'm certain Grandpa gets the first) and to know that she will be watching and guiding us from above is truly a miracle but always in the center of the net they have created.  Their love is where the string begins and always goes through as new lives are born in to this family.  So yes, I do believe that Heaven is about to become a much more beautiful place soon.  I love you Grandma...now and always!

A Spring in our Step!

I do believe that spring may finally be here!  Phew, I was beginning to wonder if it was ever going to really come at all!!  Time to see some flowers and plant some gardens!  On a side note, I have a friend who has an amazing non-profit garden organization called GardenWorks and they bring gardens into lives of those who are in need.  It's a wonderful project, check them out on Facebook if you get a chance!

As for Luke's Lids for Kids, we recently donated 43 hats and 90 headbands to 3 area hospitals just in time for Easter.  I have to be honest here, they were pretty much all for girls because I figured little girls need a great bow to go with those beautiful Easter dresses.  I also gave a few hats to a friend who has a friend with a little girl going through treatments for cancer locally.  I'm hopeful she likes them!

I think the next donation we make will be the end of June before the 4th of July and hopefully we will be partner again with Special Days to supply the campers with hats (August 4-17th are the dates).  If you are thinking about donating we will be happy to accept any help!  I'm also thinking I need to do a fundraiser this summer but I haven't quite figured this out yet, I'll let you know once I do.

Once again, just wanted to thank you all for your help and support!  Luke's Lids continues because of the ongoing and often unexpected sources of donations we receive.  My mom reminded me one day that if God didn't want Luke's Lids to continue to do its work then it would've fizzled out a long time ago and instead I continue to be amazed by the email offers of help that I get.  It feels like a blessing, truly!  Thank you from the bottom of my heart and God Bless!  Hugs!

Growth!

This is really just a quick update on a few cool happenings at Luke's Lids for Kids (or LL4K as my friend Tina calls it, I kinda like it)!  This week we have been humbled beyond belief to have received approvals from two new hospitals to which we will be donating!  We will be donating to the Children's Hospital of Illinois in Peoria, IL and Lurie Children's Hospital  in Chicago.  Two wonderful medical centers doing amazing work in the fight against childhood cancer.  Children's Hospital of Illinois is also the St. Jude Children's Research Hospital Midwest Affiliate and Lurie Children's Hospital just recently opened the doors to their brand new hospital, I've heard it is quite the amazing place.  We feel so humbled to be able to partner with these wonderful hospitals.

Also going on this week, two packages will be going out to two different organizations who provide boxes of goodies to children battling illnesses.  One package is going out to Joshua Cares Care Packages which was started by the mother of a young boy who was diagnosed with a brain tumor and received treatment at St. Jude's Children's Research Hospital.  He is now in remission and his mother continues to spread joy to the children who are still in the fight for their lives at St. Jude's.  The other organization is Team Keegan.  Team Keegan was started by the family of Keegan who was also diagnosed with a brain tumor and is now providing Prize Boxes for other children battling illness.  He is a remarkable young man and his family is doing amazing work!  They are in Michigan so to be able to partner with them is extra special (as I am a Michigander born and raised)!

I love to be able to report on great things happening.  I love that so many people believe in this project, it makes me feel like we are on to something, even if it's just a small something.  I cannot cure cancer, nor can I fund the research needed to find the cure, but I sure can try to bring awareness to what these kids are going through and why it's so important to find the people who can fund the research for the scientists who will find the cure for cancer!  Complete healing and remission should be the rule and not the exception to the rule, no one should not have to endure what cancer does to them. Cancer is an ugly word and it's a rotten foe but the courage those battling show will take your breath away.

God Bless and have a wonderful night!