Relay for Life weekend was a success!

$1450 raised for American Cancer Society!!! And that is before we tally up employer contributions and what my friends raised (then we might be close to $2100!) The event has raised over $40,000 already!  You guys are amazing!!! Too many of our family members and friends are affected by this disease, and every new diagnosis makes me MAD and encourages me to do more to fight cancer!

Why I fundraise:

I've had to take it easy today after all that walking, but I wanted to give you an update on the event.  We were able to attend, and actually joined the festivities twice!  We went in the morning to hear some of my friends speak at the beginning ceremony. All the survivors were asked to go to the front of the stage ans introduce ourselves - I got to stand up with my daughter: "Hi, I'm Joelle, I'm 32 and I'm a one year survivor from Non Hodgkin Lymphoma." It felt awesome to say that!  Then, after convincing my daughter that she couldn't get up on stage, that the microphone was now out of batteries (which meant she couldn't sing into it), and after she gave high-fives to almost evert single person around us - I carried her while I walked half a mile (one lap) with all the other survivors at the event!!! Then the caregivers got to walk one lap and my husband took her with him! They ended their lap around the bounce house and she got to have some fun before we headed home to nap. 

The back of my new shirt:

Later in the day we had friends and family join us for a 3mile walk around the park - we had 4 strollers (3 toddlers and a baby), one college student and 12 adults! It was a slow moving group (baby spit up, or toddler had to go potty, or another toddler wanted to get out of the stroller, etc) but we had a lot of fun and got to do something good for charity.  I am beyond grateful to those that joined us!

As we approach the 1 year anniversary from my diagnosis, I want to say THANK YOU for all your help in the last year!!! I appreciate all your donations, kind words, visits, calls, texts, emails, cards, and overall support! Gabo and I wouldn't have been able to get through it without the help of our friends and family!

Link to my Relay Page: http://main.acsevents.org/site/TR?px=35672502&pg=personal&fr_id=57017