It has been a wonderful day! We had our 2nd official fundraising event for the service dog today. The folks at Learning Services at Jacksonville State University sponsored this event for us. Here is a link to their website: http://www.jsu.edu/learningservices/. This also served as a service project for the students enrolled in their program. We met and worked with some really awesome kids today. They were so kind to Atticus and really worked hard washing cars. Some of them even gave their own money to the fundraiser. We were very impressed with the students and the staff that works with them. It is truly a great program at the university. We would like to send a HUGE thank you to the Director of Learning Services - Ms. Courtney Peppers-Owen, M.S., BCBA and her staff for organizing the event.
We would also like to thank the National Guard for their help at the event and for lending us their tents! And a huge thanks to Mr. Corey McDaniel for coming up with the idea for the event and for recruiting your friends at the National Guard to help out.
Soooooo... I know you're dying to know how we did today! The kids raised $263.09 at the car wash! And... there were several amazing friends that saw the car wash pictures on facebook and wanted to help out but live out of state. And those amazing friends donated a total of $550!!!!! So today's fundraising efforts came to a grand total of $813.09!!!!!
This brings our current total to --- $3,367.67!!!!! WOW!!!! This means we only need $2,132.33 to reach our first deadline on December 1, 2013. For those of you that haven't had a chance to read our past blog posts, we have $5,500 due on or before December 1, 2013 and $5,500 due on or before April 1, 2014. (The total cost is $12,000 and we paid the initial $1,000 with our contract). So.... We are over halfway there to our initial goal and almost 1/3 of the way to our final goal!!!
Friends - we are truly blessed. God is so very good. We were so nervous starting this journey -$12,000 is a lot of money. But, we felt in our hearts that a service dog would be a tremendous help to Atticus and our family. What we didn't realize though is just how much of a blessing the fundraising would be. We have been so moved and touched by the outpouring of support from friends, family members, high school friends, college friends, current and previous co-workers, and even perfect strangers.
I know I'm an old sap - Justin says I cry at the kleenex and cotton commercials (maybe just a little)... And even as I type this, I am tearing up... It just gets me though... most parents love their kids to the moon and back. And they would do anything in the world to help them. This is how we feel about Atticus. He is an amazing child. Our life is so much better because he is a part of it. And even though times are sometimes challenging - we will never give up on him and will strive to do whatever we can to help him. What gets the tears flowing, is the response from so many others who feel that way too and want to do whatever they can to help our little man.
Thank you all and God bless each and every one of you.
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