My first fundraiser was a success! Thanks Amhizzle friends! Your support was tremendous and it means so much to me!! AND it was a blast to see you all. A special thanks to Mark Gumz, President and CEO of Olympus America & David Willard, Director of Employee Communications & Community Services for their generous donation to my fundraising efforts. Olympus donated three Stylus 840 digital cameras for my raffle. - Something to Look forward it at the other fundraising events! I emailed Mr. Gumz two weeks ago. He responded within hours expressing his eagerness to help my efforts. David Willard followed up and miraculously delivered three cameras within days from when I first spoke with him. Thank you to John Sarantos for helping me sell a couple more tickets!
Best instance of kind human nature: Brett Burdick, an old college classmate stopped by my fundraiser to drop off a donation and say Hi. Brett and I spent our Senior Fall semester at Umass together, enjoying the lessons of Communication- Public Speaking 280. I haven’t kept in touch with Brett over the last two years, but with the magic of Facebook I was lucky enough to contact all old Umass classmates, teachers and friends about my Boston Marathon run and charity fundraising goal. I tried to send as many individual emails and messages as time would allow with my running schedule, work, and most importantly, sleep, but I know I did not reach everyone. Brett certainly surprised me with his visit. Since he’s a professional Poker player, I convinced him that he’d need to bet on my marathon time. Brett signed up for two times and I secretly want him to win just because it was so sweet of him to drop by. I can’t recall the times though, so maybe I don’t really want him to win! I think they’re over 4 hours and that’s over my goal time!
I had two friends, Courtney Smith and Doug Lemieux drive up from Wareham. I thought my drive was far from the Boro, but Wareham is a hike and a half! That’s love and I couldn’t appreciate it more! A ton of fellow bandos came out to support, Thank you to Todd Monroe, Jeff Fazio, Kait Cintolo, Sean Monroe, Eleni Kalafatis, Kristen Dye, Chris Bill, Michelle Gray, Steph Chueng, Danni Marone, Megan Kolb, Jen Iaconetti, Jay DeFuria, Kathryn Rapacki, Allison Norton, Greg Walters, Katie Wise, John Sarantos, Courtney Smith and Doug Lemieux. Pictures will be posted soon…. I promise!
During the raffle ticket selling spree, John and I had the pleasure of talking with a couple, Ruth and Paul? I'm honestly not sure about his name, but he told me of his horrific Boston Marathon experience. It sounds like a rough race! Ruth tried to hold him back. Ruth is very inspired by "our call to action" from President Obama. She's a Freshman College Writing teacher - Teaching Assistant? Professor? I didn't investigate, so I won't categorize her. Anyway, she was very interested and passionate about passing on the Bottom Line charity information to her class. Her semester plan is to involve her class with charity work. Each student will choose a charity, write for them, and change the world! I'm not exactly sure how it will all play out, but she's definitely leading the charge and it was a pleasure meeting them both.
In pure Katie Weinmann fashion, I’m planning to create a beautiful scrapbook of this adventure. I spread out a few pages as a guest book, one dear friend mentioned that she’s “in awe of me.” What an amazing compliment! All of the praise is overwhelming, but it the best way possible. I don’t really feel that I deserve all the compliments. I’m running a few miles, but it’s all YOUR donations that are making it happen!
Okay, I must be off to bed. I am sick and I need my rest! A few generous co-workers brought the gift of germs to work last week. I will update more tomorrow.
Thanks again everyone!!! HEY! We passed the $2000 mark! Can we make it? $1000 a month for the next threee months?
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