Helping Hearts, Blog of Anne Sanders

I took a break from Relay for Life last year for the most part and I'll be honest, in some ways I've missed it. In other ways, I have enjoyed having more time. OK, I did raise $250 to keep myself out of the fake jail they put up at our Relay (try it if you haven't, you can raise lots of money by promising to put people in jail, or not, based on whether they raise money!) and I did write an article about the honorary chair at the Relay last year in my town for our local newspaper. And, gosh I can't miss one of the biggest events of the year, so I went. But, that was about it. I wasn't on the board and I didn't have a team of my own. In the meantime, some things changed. My husband and I both started new jobs on the same day for one. And, I found out that the new company supports Relay but they have never had a team at this location. So, I wondered. Should I say something about it? or not? Eventually, it came out that I had worked on Relay and when they ...

I am saddened to hear of David Bowie’s death. Above, nine-year-old Jack Churchman from Perth, Australia recreated one of his more well-known moments. I heard about Jack because he’s collecting money for a cancer charity in western Australia. It started when he found out that some girls in his sister’s class at school had cancer. He decided to grow his hair and donate it. He wanted to do more, so with his family’s help, he began copying famous scenes from movies. He posts them on his Facebook page-- Jacks Big Cut. He will recreate a scene from a movie you request if you donate more than $5. He’s done at least a 100 scenes in movies so far and tries very hard to get them exactly right. If you go to his Facebook page, you can see th ey are excellent. He asks people to like and share their favorite film scene, then donate on his fundraising page to a cancer charity in Australia. If you’re not on Facebook, you can also go to his fundraising page to donate. He ...

  Can you imagine getting the news when you’re just four that you have cancer? It might not mean much, until you start the medical tests, shots, surgeries, chemotherapy and so on. What if while you were going through this, you decided to do something about it, to help people find a cure. That’s what Alexandra “Alex” Scott did. Alex, at age four, held a lemonade stand to help find a cure for all childhood cancers, including her own. Since that time, more than 20,000 Alex’s Lemonade Stands have been held across the country! Alex is no longer with us, but her idea of helping to find a cure is still alive and is part of a nationwide movement. It was just last weekend that I was raising money for the American Cancer Society through Relay for Life. Our Relay raised over $100,000 and I am so excited to have been part of it. But the reason I relay is for my son who was healed of cancer when he was 6. So, Alex’s Lemonade Stand is dear to me, too. National Lemonade Days are ...

Today is the day! My Relay for Life in Niceville, Florida. I haven’t spoken much about being on the steering committee for Relay this year because it’s just not as exciting as having your own team. I have been calling people, recruiting teams, setting up chairs at team meetings and helping to plan the event. It’s not like planning events to fundraise. You don’t get to count the money at the end of the evening and know it’s going to fight cancer. Of course, everything you do on the steering committee helps the teams do their fundraising so it’s all important. We have had rain in too many of our past Relays in Niceville I’m told and it looks like it might happen again. There’s a fifty percent chance of rain pretty much throughout the Relay. The skies have been cloudy but it hasn’t actually rained yet as I write this. I wish it would rain early and get it over with or hold off until Sunday. But we don’t know God’s plans. I just know we have almost 50 teams and we are ready t...

Ever feel helpless? When a friend is very sick, you may feel like there’s nothing you can do. It’s not true. You can always pray for someone and prayer can change things. There’s another thing you can do. Get some help for your friend. Recently, a friend of mine was sick. She was self aware enough to know she’d have trouble cooking so she asked me to have some of our friends make her some meals. I did so gladly. Thank God it was just a temporary illness and she was back on her feet in a few weeks. Sometimes that’s not the case. In those cases, there’s a lot to do. Take your friend to the doctor, help with laundry and housecleaning, watch the kids while she rests or is at the doctor, give her primary caregiver a break. The list goes on. So, how do you coordinate what needs to be done with the people who can do it? You can spend all your time on the phone calling and setting things up. Or, you can use Lotsa Helping Hands . What is Lotsa Helping Hands? An online service...

OK, out there, who’s heard about Thon? You may be thinking of a well known telethon or marathon but this is a special kind of thon—a danceathon that started 41 years ago. Penn State's THON is the longest dance marathon in the country lasting 46 hours and engaging more than 15,000 students each year. It starts tonight at 6 p.m. and will go until 4 p.m. on Sunday. After 46 hours of staying on their feet, the students get a taste of the daily hardships that children fighting pediatric cancer endure. Other students and families come support the dancers throughout the weekend. Attendees always look forward to "The Final 4 Hours," which includes Family Hour, when every family battling pediatric cancer is recognized and families give speeches about their battles with cancer To date , THON has raised more than $101 million   to benefit the Four Diamonds Fund providing money to offset the cost of treatment that insurance does not cover as well as other expenses of...

I have written before about what it was like when my son had a malignant skin cancer at the age of five. Thankfully, God saved him for another purpose in life, but September is a month to think about children of all ages because it’s the month for childhood cancer, infant mortality, newborn screening, and childhood obesity awareness. I remember when he was just born and a nurse came into our room and took his foot and pierced it. She squeezed out his blood and his cries made me twinge in horror. What could be so important that the nurse had to do that to him? I found out later that pinprick could have made the difference in his life if he had one of the diseases that they test for at newborn screening. These tests are for diseases you don’t notice when you see a newborn baby, but they can prevent healthy development and lifelong impairment according to KidsHealth . There are no federal standards for this but most states screen for about 30 diseases. A friend of mine just ha...

Do you ever feel like there are too many issues out there for you to make a difference? Believe it or not, I’ve felt this way before, especially with my knowledge of all the things going on in the charity world. For instance, last week, there were three different things I wanted to talk about—National Literacy Day on the 8 th , September 11 as a day of service, and National Suicide Prevention Week. If you “tuned in” last week, you know I settled on the latter. Why? Simply because I’ve written about the other two and hadn’t written about the third one yet. I felt like it was time. On the tenth anniversary of September 11, I definitely focused on that and as a former English teacher, I’ve written about literacy throughout the year. The two other issues are important to me. I buy my books from Better World Books because I know they give books to people that need them and provide literacy programs throughout the world. I also made brownies and cookies for my local firefighters on...

Sometimes we all need a reminder. I’m the Volunteer and Charity Guru, but the other day my husband reminded me of what charity is all about. He and I love Tropical Smoothie, which is a smoothie, salad and sandwich place with lots of veggies and fruits. The great thing about Tropical Smoothie is that everything tastes delicious so you feel good about eating your fruits and veggies. So when my husband came home with a bunch of coupons for free smoothies and sandwiches, I was excited. I took some for myself and left the rest for him. Then he told me a couple days later that he went to Tropical Smoothie and got a smoothie, but he didn’t have his coupons. I said, “Well, then what’s the point of having them?” So, he let me know. He told me that he paid $10 for the coupons because it goes to Camp Sunshine. Tropical Smoothie helps raise funds for Camp Sunshine so kids with serious illnesses and their families can take a break at a beautiful camp in Maine for free. Tr...

Relay for Life season is coming to its end for 2013. Over the past year, you’ve heard about my preparations and fundraising for my church’s team Angels for a Cure. It’s the last time I’ll be able to say I’m on a team of Angels, at least one that raises money to fight against cancer. We went out with a bang. We won fifth place overall for fundraising and got first place for most number of laps walked. We went to the silver team level, raising over $4500 which was $1,000 over our goal. It was an amazing year, starting with a garage sale last October and finishing with photography sessions this April just a couple weeks before the actual Relay. We also had our first ever Chili Cookoff and a two-day bake sale to end all bake sales. We auctioned off donated items at the Elks annual auction and ate at Ruby Tuesday’s, getting ten percent for the team. We sold over $900 in luminaria as well as several trackmarkers, something we had never sold before. We had the final team part...

Today is the day. Today we have the Relay for Life in my hometown. We have already made about $500 over our goal of $3500 so I’m very happy going into the Relay.  I am so excited about today. We’re going to be selling homemade coconut salt scrub that our Miss Pinterest Sam Roberts has made for us. She also had the idea of making hair ribbons and got us started on that.  We’re going to be braiding hair, doing nails, selling jewelry and raffling some items, too. While the moms are getting pampered, we have some games for the kids to do as well. As for food, we went pretty simple, just muffins, apples, bananas, green tea, water and coffee.  We’re having a spa theme to the booth this year and I’ve called it the Angels for a Cure Stress Reduction and Cancer Prevention Booth! I can’t wait to see what all the other teams are doing. I hope we make our goal for the Relay. Our team has really come together. I’m so thankful to them. When my mother was sick, the...