12/20/2017
Our last donations put us at 530 games/toys!!! 530!!! Our last thank you goes to the Draves family and a family who wanted to remain anonymous. When we started this in 2014, I never imagined it to get this big. Each year we blow the previous year’s number out of the water and each year I am beyond amazed at what my little community does. It is not only touching to me how many donations come in and how many smiles I know we are creating for these kiddos going through extremely hard things, but it is also touching to see how everyone works together! Some of you put drives together through your own community, some of you pick up donations from your own community to drop off at my house, some of you put together a drive and ship it all to my house. It is truly incredible to be the one to watch how this transforms and unfolds.
I want to tell you all about a conversation I had with Kim in child life the other day. She called me to plan out how to bring this incredibly huge pile of games and toys to her. On this same phone call, she said I want to tell you a story. She explained that this past year she had a kiddo in the hospital battling a brain tumor. He didn’t understand what was happening to him and he was shutting down. He stopped talking and stopped playing. Kim started going to his room pretty regularly to build up some trust. One of her visits she decided to go to the closet where all of our games were from last year’s drive, she got Connect 4 and brought it to his room. She got his teen sister to join in and the three of them started playing. He began laughing and joining in on the fun. She then explained to the little boy that he was going to be able to bring that game home with him. The next time she went to his room, she brought the Let's Go Fishing game. This time was able to get his mommy involved. She said while they all played this game, it created so much laughter. She said his mommy was laughing so hard she was in tears. She wanted all of us to know what these donations mean to these kiddos. That a simple game can bring a smile to the most scared mommy, daddy, kiddo and sibling’s faces. I remember being that same scared mommy in the hospital. Bret remembers being that same scared daddy in the hospital, Olivia remembers being that same scared kiddo in the hospital and I know that even though he was only 2 years old, Evan remembers being that same sibling. Whenever Olivia, Bret, Evan and I were able to play a new game and bring laughter to the cold hospital room, it was extremely touching beyond anything I could ever explain.
Everyone thanks us for doing this drive and everyone says what amazing people we are but seriously, I need each and every one of you who donates to this to know that we cannot do this without YOU!!! YOU are the ones that make this happen!!! I cannot tell you how much we appreciate it and how incredibly happy it makes us to be able to give back to the hospital that saved Olivia’s life.
