Word of Thanks 4

Words of Thanks 3

Happy Holidays Fairy Godmother Project! Please know the FGP is truly a godsend... help in any form while navigating pediatric cancer enables us to have some peace, fun, and joy. At this time of year your heartfelt assistance is an amazing gift. I can't speak for the entire pediatric cancer community but for me it helps makes me feel like we are not alone. The FGP is more then domestic assistance, their mere existence is support. They have our backs. Our family and friends are all supportive and loving but are not all local. The Fairy Godmother Project coupled with our family and friends completes the circle of support we need to travel this journey successfully. From the bottom of our hearts... thank you for the meals, the house cleaning, the organizing, and all of the support you provide.

I hope you are having a wonderful holiday season, Happy New Year!!

- From a mom with a 5 year old with Leukemia

Word of Thanks 2

This is from another one of our families:

What the volunteers of FGP do for each family is beyond comprehension. For those of us who have a hard time accepting help (even in tough times) the angels from FGP are a Godsend. Coming home to a clean house (my favorite), to a wonderful meal is beyond words. Even the lawn service was more than we could imagine - we thought we could handle the fall leaves like we always do, but had a medical setback and just never got to it.
We think it is hard to put into words what the angels (more than volunteers) mean to us. We hope and pray that one day we can pay it forward.

-Parent of a teenager fighting Brain Cancer



A huge shout out to Merry Maids for donating their time and services to our families!
5104 Park Drive Unit 102
Fredericksburg, VA 22408
(540) 907-4970

And to Grass Roots Lawn Service for their support
grassrootslawncare@ymail.com

And all the amazing volunteers making meals and our hard working Meal Coordinator!!

Words of Thanks

Recently, the families we help were asked to express what their experience has been like with FGP. We will be sharing them with you over the next few days.

Here is our first entry:


There is no story book on how you should deal with Life. If there was, then dealing with your child having cancer would be much more easier than it has been for the last 5 months. You dont expect your child to ever know what the word "cancer" means especially as a child. But when it happens, you go through life with a different meaning than you had before diagnosis. Even as a Christian we are not promised an easy life or no heartache, however being a Christian makes this process have more meaning towards Life.

What does make this easier is having the volunteers who provide us with food each week, or gas cards, or photography. They are helping manage our life during these difficult times. Words can not express the thanks and gratitude I have for each and every volunteer at the FGP. I wish there was a word bigger than "Thank you" and if there was, that would still not be enough in my eyes. You all hold a very special place in my heart and just know that you are loved even without ever meeting you. Thank you for all you do and I pray you each have a healthy and happy 2012. God Bless.

Meg Brown
(mom of William)

If you want to learn more about Will, Meg's courageous little guy, follow them on Facebook

Or via his caringbridge site

Event at Amy's Cafe

The support from local businesses following the article in the Free Lance Star is beyond overwhelming. Last week, during a meeting with Amy Johnson, who owns Amy's Cafe, we were offered use of her restaurant for a fundraiser. We were ecstatic that she was once again opening her huge heart and restaurant to help local efforts to support families in treatment for pediatric cancer. Immediately, I started making plans, thinking back to the event last year and trying to figure out what to replicate, and what could be improved on as FGP did their first ever fundraiser...oh the possibilities....

A few days later, a woman stopped by for something unrelated to our upcoming fundraiser and shared with me what an amazing family her neighbors, the Beltrans, are and how much pediatric cancer has impacted their family financially. You see, her five year old neighbor, Dominic, is facing cancer for the 3rd time in his young life. She talked about how much she wanted to do more for this family but couldn't figure out how. I got a pit in my stomach and understood just where she was coming from. I had been there before as I watched my friends face pediatric cancer. I knew in that moment that FGP needed to help them. The reality is that FGP doesn't need proceeds from a big fundraiser because our community is taking care of us.

I called Stephanie to see what she thought about having the bulk of the proceeds benefit Dominic and his family and she agreed that it made more sense to help this family than Fairy Godmother Project. So, we worked out the logistics, created a google doc to organize the donations, Stephanie got started on the flier and we scheduled a planning meeting.

Through the event, we will raise money to help Dominic and his family as they travel to NY for treatment. Beginning in November, Dominic, his baby brother and his mom will pay $35 a night to stay at the Ronald McDonald house. Initially that doesn't sound like that much but over time it will add up. We are hopeful that the proceeds of this event will help cover the cost of their housing during their 2-3 week stays in NY month after month.

What can you do to help?

Spread the word by telling friends and family about the event.

Donate items to be used for raffles or silent auction.

Donate money to go toward the event.

Buy Tickets $20 per person or $35 per couple by hitting the donate button below. Your name will be on a list at the door at Amy's.

Thank you in advance for being part of this event!!

****All donations are tax deductible*****

Training!

WOW! Our Volunteer Training filled up super fast! The room we reserved at the library only had 20 spots and guess what? All 20 are filled! We have another training coming up on November 7, 2011.

Here is the evite if you are in Fredericksburg and interested in attending. Again, we only have 20 spaces which go quickly!

Looking forward to meeting all of our new volunteers!!

Front Page!!!

We were featured on the front page of our local paper, The Free Lance Star. The outpouring of support has been amazing but we really are hoping for even more so we can help even more families! Check out the article here.
We are continuing to look for business partnerships and volunteers but so far we have support from:
Foode
C & T Produce
Bloom
Moms of Fredericksburg
Merry Maids
J.Brian's Taproom

And a business owner who has requested that he remain anonymous but so far has gifted us:
CSA from C & T
Gift cards for gas cards for families
Funds for lawns and cleaning
And SO much more!

Want to see your business on here? Please get in touch via phone:
(540) 751-8347
or via email:
vafg2011@gmail.com

Many things are happening at Fairy Godmother Project:
1. We are now a program of Journey 4 A Cure
2. We are establishing relationships with businesses to help service more families who have children going through pediatric cancer treatment.
3. We are in the planning phases of a Northern Virginia/DC area volunteer training.
4. We continue to cook, clean and give gift certificates to families.
5. We have photo sessions in all different phases (completed, planned, and editing)

Things are moving along and, as a result, our need for volunteers and donors continues to grow.
There are numerous ways for people to get involved.

1. Donate! We can always use money to purchase gift cards, care packages, offset the cost of meals, and other services. Donations are now tax deductible. Please send donations to:
Journey 4 A Cure, Inc.
43300-116 Southern Walk Plaza #649
Broadlands, VA 20148

Please put FGP in the memo line.
1. We need meal makers for the families we service. If you don't have time to cook, soon we will have a donation opportunity with some of our business partners. Essentially, you will be able to buy a meal for a family!! Will have details soon!
2. We need people who can commit to cleaning once a month.
3. We need businesses to be either sponsors (give money!!) or to provide services. Specifically we need:
a. Landscapers/ Lawn service business
b. Hair Stylists
c. House Cleaning Businesses
d. Grocery Stores
e. Farms (we would LOVE a CSA to share with families)
f. Other (can you think of anything that might help these families??)
4. Help getting a program off the ground that focuses on the siblings of the children with pediatric cancer.

Let us know if you can help in any way!!
If you are a family in treatment for pediatric cancer, please click here to request our services (presently we are only providing services between Richmond and DC). And if you have extra time, click here and share with us about your experiences in order to help make our program better!

Have a great day!!

Your child has cancer

The parents of 46 children per day have to hear those words. 46 (FORTY SIX) families PER DAY will have their entire worlds turned upside-down, will say goodbye to their "normal" lives and enter the world of pediatric cancer. The parents of those 46 kids each day will never sleep the same again, will never look at the world through the same eyes again. I don't want to scare you, but you could be one of those parents. I could too.

Did you know that Pediatric Cancer is the #1 disease related killer of our children?? And did you know that 1 in 330 children will be diagnosed with cancer before their 20^th birthday and 1 in 5 of those children will not survive. It would be naive of us to think it can't be us. It's easy to turn the other way when we are faced with stats like this, I mean really... what can WE do that would make a difference anyway?? Maybe if we don't look at it, don't acknowledge it, it will go away or it wont bother us, it works for an ostrich right? I've seen people get antsy when I talk about kids I know with cancer and I get that, I really do, it HURTS to hear and to think about... BUT it's NOT going to go away if we ignore it. You could be ignoring it right up to the moment you hear those words above. But instead, why don't we do something NOW?

Every 4 hours a child dies from cancer. Wow. That makes me teary every time I read it. And angry. Did you know that only 1 drug has been approved by the FDA in the last 30 years to fight pediatric cancer. In comparison to the 50 medications approved for adult cancers in the same time span. Pediatric cancer research will continue to be underfunded unless enough people care enough to help change that.

Today and for the next two months, you can take a step to help. Here's the rundown: Journey 4 A Cure is trying to win this money that Vivint is giving away to charities. That money is needed to help fund/advance childhood cancer research, which is needed BAD. J4AC will donate 100 percent of funds won from Vivint to cutting-edge research- to find more successful, less harmful cancer treatments and ultimately, a cure for childhood cancer.

All you have to do is click on the box below, "like" Vivint's Facebook page (don't worry, liking their page wont lead to harassment, it's just a way for them to track/authenticate votes), then you click the button to login to Facebook, then when the page refreshes, scroll down and click on "Vote". From then on, you only have to do the last 2 things. I timed it today, it took me about 15 SECONDS to do this.

Lastly, could you ask YOUR friends to do this? If we all do that, we can cover the 10,000 or so votes that we need to squeeze J4AC into 1st place. I'm competitive by nature so this challenge just fires me up! You can post the link on your facebook (over and over preferrably), email it, blog it, whatever works for you.

Let's work together to help make sure that less and less parents who hear the words "Your child has cancer" will hear "and there is no hope".

If you click below you can vote for an organization called Journey 4 A Cure to win $250,000. They are an amazing organization working hard to raise money for pediatric cancer. Please consider voting. It only takes a few seconds!!

Did you know?

Today is National Cancer Survivors Days. There are 28 million people living with cancer worldwide. Each day, over 4000 more people are diagnosed. Every 3½ minutes another CHILD is diagnosed with cancer.
In the US, one person out of every 330 will develop cancer before age 20. Each weekday in the US 46 kids under age 20 are diagnosed. Help us help those families impacted by Pediatric cancer!

The Fairy Godmother Project

In 2003, one of our founders, Andie McConnell, moved in down the street from a family whose son was a pediatric brain cancer survivor.  In getting to know this family, she learned of the family's struggles and loneliness when faced with pediatric cancer. These conversations stuck with her through the years and became very important in 2009 when the child of an acquaintance was diagnosed with a rare form of pediatric brain cancer. In hopes of easing the financial burden brought on by cancer, she began fundraising and in doing so, a great passion was born. As the fundraising unfolded, the family she was helping became dear friends and one day the mom asked if Andie would be the "fairy godmother" for her children. In that moment, The Fairy Godmother Project was born. 

The first step in getting the project underway was to survey families faced with pediatric cancer and use their answers to shape the plan for the project.  What Andie didn't expect was the need and void expressed by most of the families. They shared that people disappeared because they couldn't handle the reality of pediatric cancer. They all expressed a need for help with daily household tasks and with their other children.

This leads us to  part one  of the mission of the Fairy Godmother Project which is to  ease the burden of those faced with pediatric cancer even if only for an hour. Presently, we are making meals, organizing and cleaning for local families whose children have pediatric cancer.  We are being connected to families by word of mouth but hope one day to offer more services and connect with more families on a larger scale. For now, in the words of Mother Theresa, "Not all of us can do great things. But we can do small things with great love."

Please contact us if you are interested in tackling some small things with great love or if you or someone you know needs some small things tackled as your family faces pediatric cancer.

The second part of our mission is to provide families with photo sessions donated by professional photographers. Talking with many of these cancer families, we realized what an amazing gift could be given in photography.  This is where co-founder, Stephanie Johnson stepped in. She is the one giving the gift of photography or finding other photographers to give this gift. Their job is to capture the families' moments, connections and their love for each other despite the stress and worry of dealing with pediatric cancer. 


****Photos are shared at the discretion of each family photographed. Some families may choose to share their photos and their stories while others may not. Our purpose is to capture this time in the lives of these families. Sharing the photographs and stories is only to raise awareness of pediatric cancer in hopes of furthering help for families****