Hi Ruthe!

Every year, right before school lets out, we do a lemonade & chocolate chip cookie stand. First year we did it, Tyler was in first grade and I thought it would be a good experience to sell, count money, etc. I let him and his helper friends split the money and all they did was buy junky toys at Target. The next year, I decided that we’d learn how to give money to a good cause instead. His Tae-Kwon-Do studio was raising money to be in the Huntington Beach 4^th of July Parade so that was his cause. Last year, his teacher was raising money for the Susan B. Komen Breast Cancer Walk so he and 4 other boys in his class surprised his teacher with their donation. I know it did make some impact with them because they announced to me after school that they made their teacher cry!

This year, the Spear Family Emergency Fund was the cause. I know that $124 isn’t like winning the Lotto, but pretty good considering we sold the cookies and lemonade for a quarter and we had the stand up for less than an hour! (We sold out.) I did put up a flyer that we were raising money for the Spear Family Emergency Fund and that sparked most people to give extra. We’ve never put our cause on a flyer before and I believe last year we made a little over $50, our largest total until this year. People really are kind and want to help.

I’m not sure of the way you got to my house a couple of months ago so I don’t know if you saw that the school is right around the corner from me, behind my house. We put the stand across the street from my house at the corner where the stop sign is. There’s a lot of traffic at that corner after school so the stand gets swamped…fast! When the crowd subsided, the boys put on their roller blades, raced to the school parking lot and caught teachers as they walked out to their cars. The boys would take their order, skate the money back to the stand and then skate the cookies and lemonade back to the teachers. What service!!! My sister snapped some pictures towards the end of the sale and I’m sharing those with you. I wanted to get some during the rush time, but it was too crazy.

Back to people being kind…

One mom, Heather Smith, has a daughter in Tyler’s class. I never met her before we had the stand. She asked about your family and what the fund was for and I briefly told her about Jeff fighting cancer and about your fight as well. She immediately said that she wanted to give a donation and she pulled out her checkbook. I thanked her for her thoughtfulness and before she got to her car she wrote out another check and gave it to me. I was really surprised but she said she wanted to do it. Boy, was I really shocked later when I went to count the money and looked at the checks! Her phone number was on the checks so I called her. I told her that she was very generous and I was speechless. She told me that her husband had passed away at 33 from brain cancer and there were a lot of people who gave her support including strangers and she was grateful that she had the opportunity to do this for your family. She was grateful! Amazing woman! A simple lemonade & cookie stand provided me with a most memorable experience with kindness from a stranger…I won’t forget it!

Well…you know about the oodles and oodles of people who send Jeff, you and your kids their best wishes, but I want you to know that there are even more well wishers out here in Huntington Beach that you don’t even know about!

Hugs for you and your family,