The Face of Hope

A year ago Tresman was told he wouldn’t see his 17th birthday. On January 24th, 2009, HFC helped Tresman celebrate his 17th birthday. His 16th birthday went uncelebrated, because of the looming prognosis and ongoing treatment, but Tresman never stopped fighting. In Waco, he is known as “The Face of Hope”.

Tresman and his mother sent us a wonderful thank you note after the party with pictures. Below is an excerpt from this wonderful young man.

“This was one of the most memorable birthdays I have ever had. I am thankful for guys like you who care about terminal children like me. Sometimes we’re left behind or not included in things. In Waco I’m called “The Face of Hope”. It’s Heroes for Children who gives me that hope. Thanks once again.

I was diagnosed with clear cell sarcoma in October of 2004. It’s very rare, but I am beating all odds. I wasn’t supposed to have seen the age of 17. I want to keep the hope alive- I still have to graduate 2010.”

Sincerely,

Tresman (Cancer’s Enemy)

What a gracious and happy young man! I had the pleasure of meeting him and his family at the Holiday Heroes party in Fort Worth in December and they are a wonderful family.

To many more birthdays Tresman!

Young Texans Against Cancer donate $20,000 to HFC

Shawn Walsh, President of the Dallas Chapter of Young Texans Against Cancer, and Mike Sands, Charity Chair, presented a check for $20,000 to Heroes for Children. HFC was selected as the 2008 beneficiary after a vote of the YTAC members.

We are so excited to be selected as the beneficiary and look forward to working with YTAC in the future. If you are interested in joining YTAC, please visit their website, http://www.ytac.org/dallas/index.asp for membership information.

Thank you, YTAC!

January Volunteer of the Month

Blog readers, I'm afraid I've been negligent of my blogging duties. I kept thinking I had time to get our monthly Volunteer of the Month post up because, you know, it was just the beginning of the month. But then, I realized my time has gone by so quickly and I've found myself at the end of the month already! If 2009 goes by as quickly as January did, we're in for a fast year!

Our January Volunteers of the Month deserved more time and recognition on this site, that's for sure. Amy Hegi and Shay Sides co-chaired a new campaign for donor giving, Heart of a Hero, last year. This donor campaign was to encourage individual giving to donate a gift of $500 or more. The program raised $71,000. In November, we hosted a cocktail party for recognition and thank you to the donors of the program, including our special guest speaker Linda Armstrong Kelly, mother of Lance Armstrong and motivational speaker/author. Shay and Amy significantly helped Heroes for Children achieve fundraising success in 2008 and we're very grateful for their time and effort.

If you are interested in the Heart of a Hero program for 2009, please contact Michelle Peacock at mpeacock@heroesforchildren.org

Time for our fun answers from our January Volunteers of the Month!

Shay Sides with her family

Amy Hegi with her family

Name, Occupation:

Shay:

Shay Sides
Wife and Mom
Escrow Assistant/Marketing – Republic Title

Amy:

Amy Hegi
Wife and Mom
Chauffeur, personal assistant, waitress, maid, short order cook, CFO, CEO…

How did you get involved with HFC?

Shay:
I work with Andrew Scott at Republic Title so I followed sweet Allie’s life and soon met Jenny and Larissa. My initial involvement with HFC was chairing Underwriting for the first Heroes and Handbags brunch.

Amy: I attended one of the first HFC meetings at Cameron Smith's house (HFC board member) and was hooked. I had to be involved! I have had a passion for this organization since I was introduced to Jenny and Larissa.

Do you have any kids and/or pets?

Shay:

Jack – 10
Mary Claire – 8
Shelby – 3
2 fish

Amy:

Kate – 8 years
Mary Allison – 5 years
Lila Grace – 6 moths
Baker – puppy

From looking at you, no one would guess that…..

Shay:

I would love to be a doctor!

Amy:

My husband and I just spent our 20th Christmas together.

Favorite place to eat:

Shay:

The Porch

Amy:

Café Pacific

What’s on your book shelf?

Shay:

The Power of a Praying Parent and Wife
The Mitford Series

Amy:
The Bible, Healthy Sleep Habits (it’s not working!), Twilight

What’s in your iPod/CD changer?
Shay:

All Country

Amy:

a little bit of everything… Sugarland, Taylor Swift, Neil Diamond, Beyonce, Elton John, Cold Play, George Strait, Caedmon’s Call, Jon Abel, Highschool Musical…

Who’s your hero?

Shay:
My grandmother, Gene Evans, who is the unsung hero of our family. She is a faithful servant of the Lord, a wonderful wife, raised 3 amazing sons and is a precious grandmother – a true role model for me.

Amy:

My grandmother, Rosemary Long. She was a woman before her time! She gave 100% to everything she did and made you feel like the most important and loved person in the world. She made everyone feel that way. She knew what it meant to love and serve God above all others. She was one of the first women in Texas to get her masters degree and devoted over 50 years of her life to teaching 3rd grade. She was an absolutely amazing woman!

New HFC Team Member

Hello everyone!
Just wanted to introduce myself as the newest team member at HFC. I am very excited to be part of this wonderful organization and look forward to raising more money for pediatric cancer families in Texas.

A little bit about me...

• Native Texan - born in Dallas, but moved around a bit as a child. Moved back to Dallas after graduating Mississippi State University (and a brief stint in Memphis)
• Worked in corporate America for 7 years before jumping ship for non-profit.
• Started at The Leukemia and Lymphoma Society, then served as the Executive Director for Wipe Out Kids' Cancer for 6 years.
• Married with four kids and living in McKinney, TX
• Coach my 3-year-old's soccer team
• and before kids (BK), I used to do triathlons and marathons. Now I do snotty-noses and break up fights. :)

Thanks for being involved with Heroes for Children. I look forward to meeting everyone!

Michelle Peacock, Director of Development

The Staff Takes Part in Holiday Heroes

With the holidays rapidly approaching, the Heroes for Children staff are getting in the holiday spirit! After having an extremely busy Fall we were all looking forward to the Winter for a much needed slow down (although I am still waiting for that slow down…maybe next week).

One of the main focuses around the office the past few months has been Holiday Heroes and the 40 families through Texas that we have adopted. This program is my favorite and I am very blessed that I was able to be a part of so much of it. The shopping was a blast and watching those teams fill up 2 to 3 shopping carts full of toys, clothes, bikes, video games and even bedding filled me with excitement. Excitement that these families are going to have a wonderful Christmas because of this program. Filled with even more excitement for those families that weren’t going to have a Christmas if it wasn’t for Holiday Heroes and the wonderful volunteers.

The HFC staff originally planned to have a Christmas party to include spouses but we were unable to agree on a date that worked for everyone but we came up with an even better idea! We decided that we could choose one of our Holiday Heroes families and that family was ours to shop for, wrap for and provide for. We chose a family that touched us. They are gracious, humble and truly selfless. We choose Caden’s family. Caden is 3 years old and has been battling Neuroblastoma for a year and half. He recently relapsed and is continuing to fight. When we received this family’s Holiday Heroes wish list back in our office we looked over their wish list to find that Caden’s mom, Lexie, hadn’t listed the things that the boys had wanted but instead wrote us a letter back…

Hey Guys,
We wanted to thank you for all you have done for us over the past year. We are honored and humbled to be selected as one of your Holiday Heroes families-what a surprise. As we tried to think about needs for our family, especially the boys, we realized we have been so blessed and truly don’t lack for much in the areas of food, clothes, toys etc. It is hard to give suggestions for gifts because we don’t truly need anything. We are torn on what to do, so we will let you make the decision. Listed below are “family/brother gifts” suggestions (rather than individual child), however, if there is another family that could use your help please remove our name. Thank you again.
Hugs,
Lexie

Their list is:
Gift certificate towards bunk beds
Wii and games
Tickets to sporting events
Gift cards to restaurants or family places

We instantly agreed that Caden’s family was “our” family. We all headed out to Wal-Mart for our shopping day and we did fill up two carts worth of stuff for this family. We had a great time choosing just the right things for the boys and we each personally contributed to the shopping carts. The shopping was followed by our staff Christmas lunch at Kona Grill, and yes there was sushi involved. We even did a little more shopping after lunch!



It took us about an hour to wrap all the gifts and get them ready to deliver to Caden’s family at the Dallas Holiday Heroes Christmas party this past Saturday. It was so nice to be able to meet Lexie, John and the boys. If you were to see Caden on Saturday you wouldn’t have even know he was a little boy with cancer, he was just a little boy playing and chasing his big brothers with a smile on his face the whole time. It made it all the hard work of the Fall pay off to see the smile on Caden’s face!

Boxes, Boxes and More Boxes!

These lovely boxes are filled with objects that will brighten the day for a child with cancer.

We are sending out 7 laptops this week! Last week one of the laptops brought a smile to a young man who in reference to a comment about the smile said, “And I haven’t smiled in a looong time!”. That makes 88 laptops we have delivered this year alone!!

The two boxes on the right are milestone packages. See contents below. One’s a princess birthday party. She will have to spend her 4th birthday in the hospital receiving chemo, so we sent her a Princess slumber party package to celebrate when she gets home. The other box, a snowman party package for a 4 year old celebrating a belated birthday and a half way through treatment party!!

These 9 boxes will bring so much joy to these families in the next few days! Thanks for supporting Heroes for Children and helping us spread smiles to all these children!!

December Volunteer of the Month

Every charity has them. The volunteer rock super stars that make our jobs just a little easier. Those "go to" people that you can rely on because not only do they come through for you, but do so with passion and excitement. The kind of volunteer you wish you could figure out how to duplicate and have lots of! We are fortunate to have one such volunteer working on our special Heroes Milestones program.

Kim Bannister is a member of HFC Friends, the Heroes for Children Women's Auxiliary, and currently serving as the chair of Heroes Milestones. Milestones helps a cancer patient celebrate a milestone event in their life that he or she might otherwise miss out on due to their cancer treatment. From birthday celebrations to Celebrations of Life parties at the end of a child's life, we've helped children and their families enjoy happy moments together. Each party is unique to the child and coordinated by Christi Disch, our Programs Services Coordinator, along with Kim. This month, four year old Natalie is going to get her wish--to go to a ball and dance with her prince (ie--her Daddy). She missed her fourth birthday and is finishing chemotherapy this month. Kim has taken the challenge of creating a ball and run with it! Natalie will be the Belle of the Ball at this special event, and we have Kim Bannister to thank for it.

I'm excited to share our friend and volunteer Kim Bannister with you. If you are new to the Dallas area or starting out a family, be sure to get a copy of Kim's book, littleDallas, for tips for raising a child in Dallas. It's a must have!

Name, Occupation:
Kim Radtke Bannister; author/free-lance writer

How did you get involved with HFC?
I was invited to the first Heroes and Handbags event and have been hooked ever since. Our son was a patient at Children’s when he was 4 weeks old. The quality of service and care was amazing, but the sadness and worry we encountered with many parents was heartbreaking. Through Heroes, we can help alleviate the financial burdens for the families in need, while supporting them emotionally as well through such a program as Heroes Milestones- Making an ill child’s birthday wish come true is something my young children get excited about- it is can be a family affair!

Do you have any kids and/or pets?
Sawyer, our daughter, is 7 ½. Our son, Ford is 5. We have two German Shepherds, Amigo & Armani as well as two fish, Bud and Fancy.

From looking at you, no one would guess that…..
I am cautious in nature, was convinced I could fly when I was young, dream to camp in Africa, I am afraid of flying, my favorite actor is John Travolta & I want to learn how to surf. If I could start a new career, I would be an architect- there’s still time!

Favorite place to eat:
I love great sushi! So, Shin Sei of course! And Ed’s Deli for family breakfast and Sunday “brunch.”

What’s on your bedside table?
Town & Country Magazine, Architectural Digest, Devil in the White City, The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society & Gourmet Magazine.

What’s in your iPod/CD changer?
A variety of music from the 70’s, 80’s and 90’s to present day. Nothing gets me to run faster than Donna Summer, Blues Traveler, Bon Jovi & Guns ‘n Roses. . . a blast from the past and it reminds me of my youth!

Who’s your hero?
I admire those who are compassionate and benevolent to others without wanting anything in return. And my younger brother and his wife who lost their twin babies, Jack & Madison, at birth.