Our efforts to raise funds to help fight blood cancer
Cancer Survivor’s Lemonade Stand Helps Other Kids « CBS Dallas / Fort Worth.
We are famous! 🙂
The local CBS affiliate came out today and did a piece on us and our annual lemonade stand. They are planning on coming out tomorrow for footage of the actual stand. No pressure whatsoever to get a big turn out for that. I will say it was very interesting to see what all goes into producing this small clip. Arezow, the reporter, and Jaime the cameraman were awesome to work with and a lot of fun.
It’s that time of year again for the Lemonaid Stand. Yes, I am using a different spelling because 100% of the money that we raise as part of this multi family effort will go to the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society as part of our annual Light The Night fund-raising effort. This was started three years ago when one of our friend’s daughter wanted to have a lemonade stand and considering the impact that LLS has had on our lives they were quick to say ok as long as the proceeds were donated to the LLS. It was thrown together very last second and we were able to raise $160. Last year we put a little more planning into it and were able to up that amount to $860. This year, we are in the local paper again and are setting up fliers at both Cutler’s and Mason’s school, so hoping to continue to grow.
As is now customary, we will have lemonade, cookies, snacks, some adult beverages, a bounce house, and snow cones. For the adults concerned about catching the local college game, I will even have the tv set up in the garage. Last year was a tremendous success so here’s to hoping for a continued growth of our annual stand. The lemonade and snacks are free for any donation. No donation is too small.
So mark October 6th on your calendar, the stand will open at 2pm and go until 6pm. We usually extend well beyond 6pm, but that’s the unofficial gathering. Our address is:
429 Whisperfield Dr
Murphy, TX 75094
If you can’t make it but still want to help make a difference in the effort to squash blood cancers, you make a tax deductible donation at our Light The Night team page.
http://pages.lightthenight.org/ntx/Plano12/teamcutler2012
Thanks again to all of those that have already donated. No second donation required to join the party.
As many of you know, Cutler, our now 3 year old son, was diagnosed with a rare form of AML (Acute Myeloid Leukemia) when he was six months old and thanks to many amazing people and organizations he was home recovering from his bone marrow transplant in time for his first birthday. I am happy to say that as of his most recent oncologist appointment, he is still cancer free and living a normal life.
Cutler riding in a St Jude bikeathon at his school earlier this year.
Through countless nights in the hospital I would sit awake at night wondering why this was happening to us and I finally came to a conclusion that it was to raise money and attention to the noble cause taken on by the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society (LLS). We, as a family, have done this in many ways including Melanie running a marathon, but primarily we do it annually by participating in the Light The Night Walk. Light The Night Walk is The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society’s annual fundraising walk to pay tribute and bring hope to people battling cancer. Hundreds of thousands of participants raise funds for lifesaving research and patient services. For more than 60 years, The LLS has been solely focused on people with blood cancers. Presently, we have more than $250 million committed to research across the United States and in ten other countries. Every dollar is provided by concerned donors.
LLS invests in the best, outcome based science:
So how can you help us in our cause? You can go to our fund raising site at http://pages.lightthenight.org/ntx/Plano12/teamcutler2012 where no donation is too small. If you are fearful or unable to donate via the internet, we are more than happy to receive checks made out to the LLS at our house:
429 Whisperfield Dr
Murphy, TX 75094
We are also in favor of you forwarding this to your own circle of friends that might be interested in helping us abolish blood cancers.
If you want to join us on the night of the walk, there is a link at the bottom to join our team where you can then set up your own page and raise funds as well. I highly encourage anyone interested and available to join us on October 20th in Plano as it is a very special event to be surrounded by so many people dedicated to such an incredible cause. If you can’t make the event, we will also be having our annual Turning Lemons Into Lemonade Stand that is growing in size and success every year in the near future.
I guess I shouldn’t say it is expanding as my family back home has always been a big part of our team, but I am happy to say that we will have five more walkers for Light The Night 2012 in October and they are already working on fundraising. The Hopkins girls wanted to have a lemonade stand with the understanding all of the profits would go to our Light The Night fundraising efforts. Aside from the stand, Josie and Lindsey loaded up Josie’s car and started selling door to door. If college falls through, it sounds like they could go into vacuum sales. They managed to raise over $50 which is pretty dang good for a last second effort. I’m very proud of my nieces for their selfless efforts. If you want to join the team or just provide your financial support, our team page is http://pages.lightthenight.org/ntx/Plano12/teamcutler2012. There is a link to join the team at the bottom. As always, feel free to spread the word. Every little bit counts.
Normally we don’t start raising funds for this until August, but with the lack of Team In Training we figured it is time to start hitting everyone much earlier for what will be our annual fund raiser and to reach beyond the stars when we set our goal. The past couple of years we have been able to raise a couple thousand dollars without really pushing too deeply into our pockets so this year we have decided to buckle down and set our goal at $10,000.
That’s not a typo. LLS does some amazing work that have touched our lives personally as well as many thousands of other lives out there. It seems all too often we hear of yet another friend or acquaintance that is being touched by cancer and so it is time to step up our efforts and do our very best to ensure that those stories have a positive ending like ours.
While I would love each of you to give enough to reach our goal, what I think would be even more impressive would be to grow the size of our team and have even more people join us in the effort to raise a minimum of $100 and more importantly show your support by attending the walk. So, if you are interested in joining us for the walk, mark down October 20th on your calendar.
If you want to show your support you can go to the team page at http://pages.lightthenight.org/ntx/Plano12/teamcutler2012. Here you can donate or even better, you can sign up to join us for the walk. Feel free to share the link with others to help, at the very least, spread the word of the wonderful things that LLS does in the fight against blood cancers.
If you have any fund raising ideas or just questions about what we are doing, please contact me at aaron@teamfricke.com.
Thank you to everyone that helped/supported/attended the lemonade stand this year as we raised $860. A huge increase from last year’s total of $165. We had a great turn out of children and parents that came over and enjoyed the tasty lemonade, cookies, chips, brownies, bounce house, and a craft table organized and run by my dear mother. My parents were a surprise and very welcome appearance, especially in that my dad put everything away for me while I was back in Stl enjoying the World Series. (No cardinals celebrations here please) The stand was scheduled to end at 5pm, but carried late into the evening when my dad and I wrapped things up with a trip to Whataburger. Thanks again to everyone and here’s to hoping that next year’s will be even larger!
Were you aware that every four minutes someone is diagnosed with a blood cancer? How about every 10 minutes someone loses their fight? That equates to over 957,000 Americans currently living with a blood cancer diagnosis.
Those are some pretty large lemons to consume so we are doing our very best to help convert those lemons into lemonade by raising funds for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society so that others can be as blessed as we were when Cutler was saved two years ago.
Nearly two years after his bone marrow transplant!
As part of our latest fund-raising effort for Light The Night – Plano 2011, http://pages.lightthenight.org/ntxok/Plano11/TeamCutler, we are continuing a tradition started last year by our good friends where we have the kids “run” a lemonade stand and all proceeds go to our fund-raising efforts. Last year we were able to raise $160 with little to no advertising/planning and so this year with little to no planning we are hoping to get at least that much.
Actually this year we are slightly more prepared as we actually had an article published in the Murphy Messenger inviting everyone over to the house hoping to increase the traffic and donations. We will have lemonade, cookies, snowcones, and a bounce house.
So, for those that don’t receive/read the paper, please consider this your personal invitation to come on over and join us on 10/15 from 1pm to 5pm.
Location: 429 Whisperfield Dr Murphy, TX 75094
Hope to see you all there!
Just received these videos from the LLS and thought it would be great to share with everyone else. It’s stuff like this that really kicks up my motivation to keep raising funds and awareness any way we can.
It’s also another opportunity for me to shamelessly share our fundraising link for Light The Night.
http://pages.lightthenight.org/ntxok/Plano11/TeamCutler
Or if you are in the area on the 15th, feel free to come by the house for our Turning Lemons Into Lemonade stand from 1 pm to 5 pm.
Thank you to everyone for your continues support.
I don’t know if this research was funded at all by LLS, but this is very exciting news and a prime example of why we raise money to help find a way to beat this horrible disease. While this particular approach still has a long ways to go and is currently for only one type of Leukemia, it is very encouraging to see this kind of progress.
First of all, thank you very much to everyone for their support for Melanie’s marathon and fund raising effort where she raised an astonishing $6700. As I warned at that time we would be hitting up our friends and family twice this year and now is that time. However, given that we just finished raising money for Melanie’s marathon we are going to approach our second fund raiser for the year in a different manner.
If you remember, last year we participated in Light The Night where we formed a team of friends and family and headed downtown to join the thousands of others to walk through the streets of downtown Dallas lighting the way with our lit balloons. https://teamfricke.wordpress.com/2010/10/25/light-the-night/ Light The Night Walk is The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society’s annual fundraising walk to pay tribute and bring hope to people battling cancer. This year we are changing venues and heading north to light up the sky with a sea of white, red, and gold balloons in honor of our hero, Cutler and rather than hit everyone up directly for money we are hoping to enlist anyone interested in joining us in person and showing how large and strong Team Cutler really is.
The walk is scheduled for October 22nd, in Plano and we would love to see anyone and everyone interested in joining us. That evening, prior to the walk, there is a celebration complete with food, drinks, and games. In order to participate, you would need to raise only a minimum of $100. Naturally we would like to raise more than the minimum per team member, but that’s only hitting up 10 friends, family members, or work associates for $10. To join just go to our team fundraising page, http://pages.lightthenight.org/ntxok/Plano11/TeamCutler, and scroll to the bottom and click JOIN in the JOIN OUR TEAM NOW section and get the process rolling where you can build your own fundraising site to help in the cause.
This goes for our out of town friends as well; if you want to come down we will find a way to put you up for the weekend in the Team Fricke compound. The weather will be nice by then, so a good campout in the backyard would be nice if we get enough out-of-towners.
If you can’t join us, but want to donate, just head to the fund raising site, http://pages.lightthenight.org/ntxok/Plano11/TeamCutler, and donate away and feel free to send to your friends and family. We don’t need to know them, we welcome all support.
Contact me at aaron@teamfricke.com with any questions and will let you know as we work towards some fun fundraising ideas, including a repeat of the kid’s lemonade stand, https://teamfricke.wordpress.com/2010/10/25/turning-lemons-into-lemonade/ and hopefully more this year.
Team Fricke 