We emailed, called, facebooked and messaged everyone we knew. We pounded the pavement to get attendance at our Pancakes for a Purpose event. We made signs, recruited volunteers, and we paid the venue for the event. And then we showed up and waited, and waited, and waited for people to come.
Kansas City greeted our event with a cold, drizzly stay-in-bed-and-cuddle-up kind of day. As we waited, we started to receive regretful texts from friends who simply weren’t going to be able to make it that day. My heart sank. I choked back tears. This event that I hoped would help bring us halfway to our fundraising goal simply wasn’t going to get us there. A lead weight settled in my gut. Would we even break even?
As I struggled to process that our event just wasn’t going to be the success we had hoped for, I looked around the room. It was filled with volunteers who had gotten out of bed super early to help us ensure a successful day. My family had driven four hours just to help out. They got in after 11 p.m. and were ready by 7 a.m. to serve pancakes to others.
I was wrong. This event was a success. I now know how much my family and Tim’s family supports this adoption. I know that I am so fortunate to have friends and coworkers that would drag themselves out of bed to come help out.
An hour into the event, guests started to trickle in. Former and current coworkers who wanted to say congratulations and eat some pancakes. People in my twin mommy club, ladies from my mommy group, a couple from our daycare whom we’d never even met. Even a couple of people who just heard of our event online or saw the signs and thought it was a great thing. Neighbors joined us.
We were blessed.
True, it wasn’t the sellout crowd that we had dreamed and hoped for, but people came, people ate, people wanted to be part of our journey. People care. People want Baby H to have a home with us.
And we are even closer to our fundraising goal. We knew when we started that we had a lofty goal for just five months. Three months into our fundraising and we’ve raised over $4,000. That’s an amazing amount of money. Countless people have bought cookie jars and cupcakes, attended our events or made donations. We’ve received donations from both friends and strangers of items we can sell on Craigslist to raise more money. We received an amazing gift that we can raffle off to raise more money: a three night stay at the Lake of the Ozarks in Osage Beach, Missouri.
People have helped us get the word out. People who don’t know us are rooting for us, cheering for us, praying for us. We couldn’t ask for more.
Cancer Ever After 
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