Just 4 more days!!

Next Tuesday is June 15 and what's the big deal about June 15? It's the last day of pre-registration for the 3rd Annual Smiles For Sophie Forever Birthday Bash and Dash!! In case you have been meaning to register, but haven't yet, you should do so before midnight on Tuesday (or make sure your mail-in entry is postmarked by June 15). Pre-registration is just $20 for 11 and up, and $15 for 10 and under, and it guarantees you a race t-shirt, a goody bag, entry into the door prize drawing, a kid's activities wristband (if applicable), and a birthday cupcake. After June 15, the race entry fee is $25 with no guarantees of the above items.

In addition, there is still plenty of time to fundraise!! When you register for the race, you can choose to become a fundraiser for this event. Active.com makes it really easy by sending you instructions on how to customize your own personal fundraising page that you can then email out to friends and family. If every participant became a fundraiser and sent the page to 20 friends and family who then each donated $10...WOW!! What an impact that would have on reaching our fundraising goal for this year's race and what a difference it would help SFSF make in the lives of many of the children fighting brain cancer!! Please consider becoming a fundraiser and sharing Sophie's story with everyone you know. Every dollar helps!! (If you have any problems with your fundraising page, please email me at smiklaski@cox.net.)

June 15 is also the printing deadline for the race program, the race t-shirt, and the race banner. Please see the corporate sponsor/gift in-kind forms at http://smilesforsophieforever.org/birthday-bash-and-dash for the various sponsorship levels. So if you, or a company you know, is planning to donate in support of this year's event, please be sure to make your online donation today or to postmark your check by June 15. All checks should be made out and mailed to:

Smiles For Sophie Forever
31722 Leeward Ct
Avon Lake, OH 44012

Speaking of corporate sponsors or gift in-kind donations...we still need your support!! Remember, all donations are tax-deductible. So, again, businesses out there...donate to support a local organization and let us help you advertise by including your name and/or logo (as applicable) on our printed race materials. Or if you or somebody you know has anything to donate to the Foundation to be used in the Chinese raffle or silent auction, we would greatly appreciate it...concert tickets, tickets to sporting events, sports memorabilia, hotel stays, children's activities, gift certificates, anything!! Again, June 15 is the print deadline so get your items to us as soon as you can!!

So far, we have 123 registrants for this year's race and have raised $10,656 on the active.com fundraising page!! Thank you so much to those of you who have pre-registered and to those of you who have donated and/or become fundraisers. It is truly through these donations that the previous 2 events have been so successful. At this same time last year, our active.com page was approximately $1000 more than we have now (with 129 registrants), and at this same time two years ago, it was approximately $2000 more (with 121 registrants). Let's make a big push from now until July 4 to make this year better than even the inaugural event in 2008. I know we can do it!! If you are reading this blog entry today, please take a few moments to share it with 10 people or to ask 10 people you know to donate.

Donating is easy and can be done either online or by writing a check. If you are going to donate online, one way you can really help is to make your donation on Team Nordson's Smiles For Sophie fundraising page. Kathleen Smith, of Nordson, has registered for the race and has created the team fundraising page. Nordson has generously offered to match all donations made to the team page up to $6,000!!! This is an awesome way for us to make $6,000 into $12,000!! So, you can easily double your donation by simply visiting the Team Nordson fundraising page at http://www.active.com/donate/SFSFBashandDash10/KSmith1379 to make your donation online.

Thanks to all the volunteers who have continued to work behind the scenes to make this year's event better than ever. We could never do what we do without all of our awesome volunteers. Nor could we continue meeting our mission without all of our awesome supporters and donors. So thanks again and keep it up...just over 3 weeks until race day!!

Hope to see you all there!!

Sarah

The Home Stretch

Greetings. Last time I wrote I was smack in the middle of my time on crutches while I waited for my broken ankle to heal. It's been almost 10 weeks, and I am happy to say that I am almost back to my old self. The MRI of my leg came back normal and the suspicious spot I mentioned before is indeed nothing to be worried about. The white "growth" is a non-ossifying fibroma. Thank God for the small blessings! After this ordeal, I have a new found compassion for people on crutches. They never really looked that bad until I had to survive on them for 8 weeks! I am happy to say that things healed as they should and I am glad to be back as a more "active" part of Smiles For Sophie Forever!

Life continues on here and we are just about a month away from our biggest fundraiser - the 3rd Annual Birthday Bash and Dash. Wow! 3rd Annual. It's almost hard to believe. Not because we already have 2 races under our belt, but because it means we are getting closer to the 3rd anniversary of Sophie's death. I often wonder how this can be. How is it that my little girl should be turning 7 and finishing 1st grade, yet she never even finished one year of preschool? Every day I really miss her so much. I have a feeling that it might seem to some that I should "get used to" the pain of losing a child. It's a rare occasion that Sophie's name is mentioned anymore, and I get the feeling that I'm expected to move on. But grief just doesn't work that way. I'm sure you tire of me saying the same things all the time, and know I've said it before, but you could never truly understand how I feel unless you have lived through the nightmare of losing a child. What's worse is it saddens me to know that there are people out there who have lived the nightmare and do know what I feel every day.

Sarah is approaching her 4th birthday, and she still talks about Sophie, and death and heaven a lot. When I look at her, she seems so big, yet so little at the same time. I just shake my head when I think that Sophie didn't have the 4th birthday of a normal child. When she turned four, she was in the middle of the fight of her life, and just about to take a turn for the worse. Sarah's innocence reminds me what Sophie should have been doing in the summer of 2007. She should have just finished preschool. She should have been looking forward to days at the pool. Of course I know she is having the time of her life in heaven and that everyday is a day at the pool, but somedays, knowing that just isn't enough. Some days I feel so angry that Sarah never really got to know Sophie. I'm angry that she doesn't have the life long friend and sister that she was supposed to have. It bothers me even more because Sarah seems to gravitate to "older" girls when in a group. I'm sure Sophie and Sarah would have had their moments, but I truly believe they would have been awesome playmates. I hesitate to write about how the grief and sadness has a way of lingering in our lives because it seems like another reminder. Of course I would never want to forget Sophie, and I never could, but some days I still wish that I would wake up. It seems crazy to say that, but I still ask myself how and why everyday. And sometimes I can't believe it happened to us. Honestly, when I think those thoughts, I am even more determined to do something for those families who are suffering like us. I know what they are feeling. Despair in every sense of the word; many trying to hang on to hope for a miracle when every doctor out there tells you there is no cure.

So what do we do with our grief? We put it to work. The Foundation is work and a work that sometimes I wish I didn't have to be a part of. Not that I don't want to be helping other pediatric brain cancer patients, and searching for a cure; I just wish I didn't have to lose my daughter to become an advocate. Some days it's so obvious that life would be so much easier if I weren't "in charge", and if I could just volunteer here and there when I felt like it or when my scheduled allowed. It sounds selfish to me to write that, but I think that is the life of a "normal" person. A life that I will never have. I have a quote in my basement that says, "What we do in life echoes in eternity." Why I was chosen to be one whose lifelong commitement will be to spread the word and the awareness, I will never know. But it is not my job to know. Never in a million years would I have thought that this would be my life. The day before Sophie's diagnosis, I was just living life. And then I was blindsided by cancer. Just as most people are. There is so warning, no rhyme or reason. It could be any of us, and that is the scary thing.

I am so thankful for the people that God has placed in my life to help with the Foundation, and every day I remind myself that He put these passionate people in my life for a reason. How is it that some people can give so much to a cause founded for a little girl they barely knew, or never even met. Of course I can't discount the support of our family and those who knew and loved Sophie because they too have been amazing. We have come so far with the work of the Foundation and we are not stopping here.

We are in the home stretch with race planning, and could use your help in a few areas. First of all, we want you to be a part of our race. Registering early helps us tremendously. And of course we could use your financial support. You can donate to the cause though the main page, at http://www.active.com/donate/SFSFBashandDash10 or you can donate to Sarah's page at http://www.active.com/donate/SFSFBashandDash10/SarahQuayle . She is going to be running the 1 mile this year, or so that is the plan. One day she says she wants to, and the next she says she is afraid she won't win. So if you feel called to donate, we would appreciate your help. And, if you want to do even more than donate to our cause, the best way you can help is to create a fundraising page of your own. It is not difficult to do, and my sister Sarah has offered to assist anyone who needs help. We know that each of you has a whole bunch of friends and relatives who would consider supporting your efforts. The best thing you can do is to share our story with your friends and family. Not only will you be raising much needed funds, but you will also be raising awareness, and you can't put a dollar amount on that!

In addition we are looking for items to use at our silent auction and/or Chinese raffle. If you have any contacts that would be able to donate services, concert or sporting even tickets, travel vouchers, sports memorabilia, gift cards or anything of the sort, please contact michelle@smilesforsophieforever.org. We have a deadline of June 15 to be included on our printed materials, so the sooner the better would be awesome. If you want more information about sponsorship levels, please visit the upcoming events portion (bash and dash) of our website and click on sponsorship forms.

Lastly, as another way to help with race preparations, we are still in need of bottled water. If you'd like to donate a case or two, I am collecting them now and you can drop off any water you'd like to donate to my house. The water will of course be used for post-race refreshments for all our runners and walkers.

As if planning the race weren't enough, we have a few other things going on. Tonight we will be participating in "The Best of Lorain County." We have been selected as a finalist in the Best Charitable Race category by readers of pulse, Lorain County's Magazine. If you live in the area and don't have plans tonight, consider coming out to the voting and expo which will be held at the Spitzer Conference Center in Elyria, Thursday June 3, 6-9pm. We are honored to be chosen and are proud that the community recognizes our race as one of the "best." We were a finalist in "The Best of the West" in April, and for the second year in a row, we won! Thank you to those of you who voted for us.

In our last newsletter we mentioned the Dash and Dine contest by Uglu and how they are giving us a $1000 donation as part of a design contest they are doing. You can help by going to their website and voting for the designer of your choice. While you are there, you can also enter for a chance to win $1000 for yourself. Here is the website. http://my.diyideas.com/app/voting/index.jsp?id=/templatedata/diyideas/voting/data/1271865042710.xml&ordersrc=rddiy0020 You can vote daily. Please take a minute to vote for your favorite!

Also, there is a frozen yogurt place in Westlake called "Spoon Me." It opened May 15, and as part of their program to give back to charities, this location has offered to donate all of the their tips through out the month of June to Smiles For Sophie Forever. We thank the team at Spoon Me for thinking of us, and we encourage you to visit them for a taste of their fare, and while you are there, don't forget to leave a tip! If you become a fan of Spoon Me on Facebook, you can print a coupon for a buy one get one free. Bon appetit!

On Monday June 28, we will have our 4th Annual Smiles For Sophie Forever Golf outing in Grand Blanc, MI. If you would like to attend, please contact Bob or Brett Quayle or simply download the registration form which can be found under the events tab on our website. We are looking for raffle and silent auction items for this event too. If you have any Michigan connections you would like to share, we welcome them with open arms. Just call Bob or Brett at 810-238-5000 or email brettquayle@quayleandcompany.com.

Once again, I thank you for caring enough to take the time to read this and even more to those of you who take action after reading it. You'll never know how much your support means to me.


God Bless!