Great Strides 2012: Synergy

On Saturday May 19th, we gathered together for our 2012 walk to celebrate all the success we've had raising both awareness and funds to find a cure for Cystic Fibrosis.  Dean was a bit overwhelmed with the magnitude of attention at times and even chose to take his nap a little early:

Dean napping on Obba

I've been thinking about the best way to express what it felt like for us to be in the middle of this outpouring of support and I'll reuse my post from FB:

smiling...grateful...awed...humbled...blessed

There is a fantastic quote that I heard recently that sums it up for every single person that reaches out in their own way to help our little man: 

To the world you may be one person, but to one person you may be the world.

~ Josephine Billings

We are overjoyed and sincerely thankful for each and every call, text, email, kind word, financial donation, in-kind donation, assistance with and at our fundraising efforts, managing fundraising events for us and your help in raising awareness by asking your family and friends to support our quest for this Cure.  We thank our friends, family, their friends and family and our sponsors.

I found that quote above in a book called ONE which is about the idea that one person can make a difference.  There is a great part in the book which reminds us that if you combine two or more good-hearted people in pursuit of a common cause, and suddenly 1 + 1 is more than 2.  The synergy working here is what will make all the difference in the world for us.  You are significant in this fight.  You have a talent, a connection, a kind word and contribute critically to helping us fight for Dean and 30,000 others in the U.S. 

The amount of money raised for Eat. Pray. Dean in 2012 will exceed the goal we set up initially but more importantly we are raising awareness.  Group cohesion talks about the property that is inferred from the number and strength of mutual positive attitudes among members of the group. Beyond appreciation, I'll fill you in on what Jim and I "get" from this team and your help.  We are:

• lifted up by how Eat.Pray.Dean is growing and increasing in interactions, in comunications, in size
• ecstatic and humbled by people banding together for this common interest
• excited for the new friendships we have formed in the midst of such a disease
• comforted by the fact that old friends and family don't get tired of hearing us talk about how very close we are to finding a cure
• thankful for the amount of people who took a chance and shared our story with their family and friends and in turn raised more than we could have imagined at this stage of the game
• ecstatic that we have sponsors willing to connect their company with our cause
• grateful for the opportunity to share our family with each of you
• invigorated knowing that we have such a strong team working alongside of us
• hopeful that a cure will come in his lifetime
• blessed by a God who trusted us enough to place this fighter in our care. 

So in closing, you play a significant role in this cure.  We thank you and will continue to thank God for you.  Oh, the number?  You're probably interested in where we stand right now!  We set a goal of $28k, after all the outstanding $'s from the past few weeks are entered, we're at $28,062!!!   Besides just the walk, many people helped us in various ways with fundraisers of their own.  To check out these stories: 
http://www.eatpraydean.com/2012-fundraising-stories.html.  If  you're outside of Illinois, we've successully had Kalena take our team out west this year and Marie out East.  We'd love to expand our team in 2013 with your help.

If you missed one of our last posts, check it out here...it shows how even though the drug released last January will not help (by itself), plans are that drug synergy (this word is all over the place :) ) will work together to benefit Dean in the future.  To read the positive results about the clinical trial:  Baby Stepping to a Cure

We have a draft "thank you" created in word and Adobe (thanks Annmarie) that you can use if you would like to write thank you's to the people that supported you via your fundraising page.  This means so much to us and we will send that out to you separately. 

Finally, as you can tell, we cannot stop.  How could you if you knew you were so close to fixing your little boy?  Save the Date for Chillin' & Grillin' for a Cure - Saturday July 14th 3-10pm.  We will need help pulling this one off, and please let us know if you are interested.  Otherwise, please come and relax with the family and have a great time knowing that you are helping make a difference.

Our fundraising page is still open through the year:  http://www.cff.org/Great_Strides/JimandErinBurns

With so much love,
Jim, Erin, Cali, Owen, Evie & Dean

We captured abut 175 but estimated about 200 people supported us on 5/19/2012

Jim, Erin, Cali, Owen, Evie & Dean

We have an amazing amount of pictures and all are so great, we had a hard time picking a few to show so are working on posting for all to see, will let you know when we're done with those.

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