A Night To Remember

Okay, okay, I know my title totally sounds like

a prom theme.

But I couldn't think of anything more appropriate.

Tonight was really one of those nights I will never, ever forget.

After two plus years of work, tonight we unveiled the Hall of Heroes

portraits to the families, donors, supporters and staff at St. Luke's

Children's Hospital.

 For a little background, we are about to have our 3rd Baldapalooza

to raise money for Idaho's children battling cancer.

The first year we raised money to create the Hall of Heroes--

portraits of 22 children battling cancer, complete with their

stories and words of advice for other families starting down

that horrific road.

It's been more work than you can imagine

but oh, was it ever worth it tonight to see--

 the faces of some of the parents as they saw the portraits

of their children holding photos of themselves while in the 

throes of battling cancer.

My dear friend Fabiana took this powerful picture

(and donated her time and talent to shoot all but one of

the portraits.  One of the children featured, Anthony passed

away last year).

 I particularly love this collage.

The cute as a button little girl, Shae is one of the toughest

warriors you'll ever meet.  If I remember right, she had

Stage IV Melanoma on her neck.

The darling girl next to her with glasses is Taylor.

My girls adore Taylor-- she kicked cancer's butt when she

was younger and is now working at the hospital and studying to be a nurse.

She also volunteers at Camp Rainbow Gold-- the magical organization

we are raising money for this year.

 Marnie - on the left, is the Nurse Practitioner who sees

Kean and works with all the kids with cancer.  We have grown to

love this woman through the three years we've been seeing 

her and the other doctor's at MSTI.

Zoe, in the center is the head of Special Events for the hospital--

and my lifeline as we've slogged through bringing this dream to reality.

 Finally, this is one of the few pictures I actually took.

This is of one of the cute moms-- holding the portrait

of her child she gets to take home (thanks to Framed Legacy

who donated all of our printing and framing) and a beautiful

book Fabiana put together of all of the children and their stories.

We will have all of these portraits and some of the children

on hand at Baldapalooza on August 29th.  This will be the only

time the portraits will be out in the public before being hung on the walls

in the children's Oncology Unit at the hospital.

If that's not a reason to come to Baldapalooza, I don't know what is!