Passion.
According to our friends at Wikipedia it is defined as:
Passion (from the Latin verb patī meaning to suffer) is a term applied to a very strong feeling about a person or thing. Passion is an intense emotion, enthusiasm, or desire for anything.
The term is also often applied to a lively or eager interest in or admiration for a proposal, cause, or activity or love – to a feeling of unusual excitement, enthusiasm or compelling emotion, a positive affinity or love, towards a subject.
We all have passion about someone or something in our life, but how many of us channel that passion and grow it into something bigger? More so, how on earth can someone else have that same passion for a greater purpose for something they have not personally or directly experienced? It is called goodwill folks. It is still out there in this world and very much alive. We witnessed this firsthand last weekend in full effect with two back to back fertility-awareness-tastic events.
Allow me to begin with the first event. Putting for Parenthood. Chris and I may not have a ton of money but we are filthy-stinkin’ rich. We are wealthy in the amazing friends we have made over the years. P4P was born from two friends of ours that simply wanted to help us. They have watched our struggle and are the ones who have been in the front of the volunteer line for many of our fundraisers. P4P (Putting for Parenthood) was born from two remarkably talented and driven friends. They took the reins with passion and gusto and said “we will put together a golf tournament for you and you can do whatever you want with what we raise.” That’s when we decided to make this an annual event and the funds would go back to a local infertility group in our area. It would be the seed money to pay for OPKS, books, pregnancy’s tests and resources to aid in their journey. It would help start care packages for couples who deliver losses in the hospital and send cards to those whose placements or procedures have failed. More so we hope it will be the beginning of something much bigger.
With only 6 weeks of preparation they pounded the pavement for sponsors and rallied a team of fierce volunteers. Those volunteers gathered more sponsors and built teams to play in the tournament. We spent long nights and days putting together raffle prizes and grab bags. You know what though? There were many volunteers that were part of the IF community there to help but, those two friends and their many friends were not. That is what amazes me. Here we have so many people who were there to help, took the day off from work all for a cause that did not directly affect them. They became part of the voice of infertility without even one stick of a needle. Although the numbers are still being tallied as to how much we raised, one thing is very clear this once was just an idea that now will have a lasting affect on many many couples.
We had many local business become grab bag sponsors to help stuff our bags!
Which led to having a ton of bags to fill.
All the golfers got had a chance to hit this.
What? Never see a sperm shaped cornhole bag? Well, neither have we until the tournament.
Thank you Waffles for your sweet sewing skills!
Registration time! OK seriously, these girls were like a girl scout and pushed
some serious raffle sales!
Setting up our prizes! Just a little (Gale Force) wind issue nothing we couldn’t handle.
As T would put it, they were “Volun-told” and we love them for listening!
Round up time!
Time to hit the links for a good cause folks!
The prize list was pretty much awesome. Donations from local businesses, volunteers and sponsors!
Remember when I said there were two events? After being on a high from the golf tournament we woke up stupid early the following morning and with one eye open and very little sleep we drove an hour and half to be guest announcers for The Race to Parenthood. Jenn Nixon is also a bit of a firecracker. We have a lot in common in the fact that we both cannot carry our own pregnancy, we both are bloggers (check out her blog HERE) and we both will be or are currently pursuing surrogacy. This tenaciously talented young lady decided to make a difference, be that change, show PASSION. She came up with the idea of The Race to Parenthood 5k. Here is how it works, a featured couple who needs help with funding for IVF, IUI, gestational surrogacy, or adoption, will form a team to run/walk/cheer with them during The Race to Parenthood 5k. The featured race sponsors made it possible for 100% of the registration fee to go to the featured couple the participant wishes to support. Brilliant I say. It was so incredibly successful that this one race rallied 504 registrations and raised $28,600 towards the featured couples. I cannot wait to see what the Race of 2015 will bring. Jenn and team, you deserve a standing ovation.
Jenn and the Birthday Boy! The shirts and signs folks came up with were fantastic.
See video Here.
In this one weekend we met so many people and saw so many instances of PASSION that it is hard to believe that the monster that is infertility would have a chance of beating anyone, of taking the dream of having a family or building a family away from any couple. That doesn’t mean that it won’t be hard; everyone put in tons of sweat, personal time, and effort to pull both these two very different events off. All these people proved though, that they are willing to do anything – putt, run, organize, announce, whatever – to realize our family building dreams. And with friends and family like this, with communities of people filled with PASSION, the path to parenthood has never looked more promising.
It’s great that you guys are so loved. I wish I were able to inspire anything other than apathy in my “family.” When I tried fundraising, my mother in law told me that if I couldn’t afford to make a baby, then I didn’t need one.
Kalisu, it can be very frustrating to get negative feedback when you are trying to fundraise and I can definitely relate to what you are going through. Check out our fundraising page and read the conversation between somebody named Shannon and me. As we ‘probed’ our family and friends for their interests in helping us raise money, we got the whole gamut of responses. Some folks wanted to drop everything they were doing to help and others seemed genuinely disinterested in being involved. That’s just it though. Knock on every door, if you get a door slammed in your face, you know not to knock there again. But, there are tons of other doors to knock on. We have been blessed by amazing family and friends that have rallied behind our cause and I know that you will find folks to rally behind you. Part of finding the people that will be advocates for your fundraising efforts is getting comfortable with talking to people about your struggle with IF. Everybody knows somebody that has faced IF and that can be a way to build connections. Once that happens, people will start coming out of the woodwork to champion your cause. We wish you great success in fundraising and don’t let negativity hold you back. That is just one more person that will not have the opportunity to know that they helped you build your family starting with the first penny.