The Hair Raisers

The response to our fund raising efforts from family, co-workers, friends, and neighbors has been tremendous thus far. As of today, the Hair Raisers Relay for Life team sits on top of the standings for the Lincoln Haymarket Park Relay. After our first fund raising event, the garage sale, Tracy also reached the $1,000 mark. One thing that is cool about getting to one thousand is that they give you a t-shirt in recognition for getting there.

While we're proud to have reached that amount, we both know how we got there. The vast majority of the money I've raised so far has come strictly from donations made by friends and faculty members from our middle school and high school. There are still others who have said they plan to donate. I'm proud to know so many generous people. I also know from messages that they have given that a number of them have lost loved ones to cancer. Donations have been made in their name. Their donations come from the heart.

We made over $400 from yesterday's garage sale. Much of it came from the sale of smaller items. I would guess that over half of the items at the garage sale were donated by co-workers and neighbors. Tracy's mom raised some money toward her own goal by making some kolaches and cinnamon rolls to sell. That went over very well as well. And we had two neighbors on our cul-de-sac that had garage sales of their own. All of this contributed to yesterday's success. But the major thing that stood out was the willingness of the general public to help out in the fight against cancer.

There is still a long way to go. Our goal is to raise $10,000. But we've got a great team and several fund raisers still in the planning stages. We've got a shot to get there. I doubt that we'll stay very high in the rankings for much longer as many teams are just getting started in their efforts. And getting passed by many teams would be just fine with me! This is about finding a cure for a dreadful disease that is breaking hearts and taking lives every day. It feels good to be fighting back and it feels even better to have friends at our side in this fight.