“There are magical, beautiful things in the world. There’s incredible acts of kindness and bravery, and in the most unlikely places, and it gives you hope.” ~ Dave Matthews
I had thought about this for months, what I could do to help a friend in need. The virtual race idea was inspired 100% by the amazing, kind, generous and hard working blogging community that I have become so close to in the past few years. I have always been the type of person who hesitated to throw a party for fear that no would show up, and this same thought crossed my mind when I started Kyle’s Krusade Virtual Race… “will anyone show up?” I was afraid, but my fear exited out of my mind when I saw more fear in the eyes of my beautiful friend Nicole. What I saw in her eyes when this started was “will anyone show up for me, for Kyle, for Baily?” I knew I had to take action even if I was the only person.
I could not have been more wrong. People did show up – A lot of people.
Runners and volunteers from all over the planet helped, donated, shared, blogged, and worked to support Kyle’s Krusade. They ran when they were sick, ran when it was 20 below, ran on treadmills, trails, concrete and snowshoes. Some ran all three races in one day, some ran more than than they were asked to. People shared their experiences — how they thought of, prayed for, and were inspired by Kyle’s courage. I was, and still am, blown away by the generosity and kindness of the human race and the runner community. This run has renewed my faith and healed my heart as much as it has for the O’Connor family. Nicole has expressed multiple times to me how deeply grateful she is to each and every one of you.
I would like to say a special thanks to Nicole’s close friend, Angela, who worked behind the scenes organizing one of our local races for the O’Connors and her friends here in Simi Valley. Angela worked to make this event extra special for Nicole. She partnered with our local Trader Joe’s in Thousand Oaks, CA. to get food and water for the runners, she got the run put on our local PTA web page, gathered some large donations, and handled the set-up and take down on run day. She was awesome!
Angela and her family worked out of the goodness of their hearts to help their friend Nicole. Thank you, Angela. I’m so grateful for your leadership, drive, and unconditional caring to make this event so special. And a special shout out to Jen from Bell of the Ball Designs, for the gorgeous flower arrangement provided that day.
We also had another local race organized through the runners at Future Track Running Club, lead by Dan Gerlach. Dan worked to organize, map out, and promote the race we had last Saturday. Mr.Gerlach was responsible for rallying every runner that day. Thank you, Dan, for giving so much of yourself in honor of this little boy, that you’ve never met, with who you hold so much compassion for. You’re the best!
That’s crazy Dan in the Yellow:
A huge thank you to each and every runner and all the people who donated. To read all the recaps, see the links below. If for some reason I missed you, please send me the link and I will add you immediately.
RECAPS
Now for the fun part, who won the prizes?
PRIZES
Costco gift card and Membership: Erika Myers
Total Wine Gift Card: Lisa Roehm-Gersel
Starbucks Gift Card: Kim Mills
Oiselle shorts and shirt: Amy Holt
Goldwell Haircare Set #1: Andrea Gillespie
Goldwell Haircare Set #2: Cassie Britton
KMS HairCare Set #1: Jill Sheridan
KMS HairCare set #2 : Angela Ange
Xterra Trail race entries: Polina Datsova
Miles Stones Race Bib Coaster: Axel Kussmann
Simple Hydration bottle #1: Amy Caine
Simple Hydration Bottle #2: Nicole Convery
Simple Hydration Bottle #3: Katie Heddleston
Picky Bars: Alison Gittelman
Nature Box: Rachel Mrad
Nuun Hydration: Melody Jones
Healthy Bites #1: Christopher Newton
Healthy Bites #2: Kai Hedrich
Sony Walkman: Christina McCall
Winners please email me your information so that I may start working on getting the prizes out to you! Congratulations!
I used Random.org to select the winners, for a detailed report please feel free to email me.
I want to thank each and every one of you for the donations, running, sharing and prayers, I am overwhelmed by the generosity of strangers. One of the many things I learned during this fund raiser is that some of the wealthiest people are the stingiest and that when it comes down to it, it’s regular people making small differences that in my eyes are the heros. SO grateful to all of you for making a difference in this families life. Together, we raised close to $2000 and this excludes an anonymous donation of $500.00. I am overjoyed at our total, but more than this I hope we gave The O’Connor’s a little encouragement to keep moving forward one second at a time. LOVE you Nicole, Kyle and Baily!
