Just wanted to let you all know that our final amount raised for the Happy Heart Week 2016 campaign is...$26,200! WoooHooo! THANK YOU ALL SO MUCH. When I look over the list of donors, I could cry (and I have!) out of thankfulness. Feeling so blessed that our Village cares so deeply and is so very generous. Again, thank you for all of the ways that you may have participated in HHW this year...your thoughts, your prayers, your time in educating yourself, your boldness in sharing our cause with your networks, and of course your money. Couldn't have done it without you. A couple of things in closing...
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. With love, The Branagh Family Henry with best friend and cousin, Josephine
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We did it! We have officially crossed the $20,000 goal! I'm not totally sure of final numbers, because I know of some donations that have not been fully accredited to HHW, but I will let you know later this week how much we raised. And by "we", I mean all of you. We are completely blown away by your generosity, care, and concern. We feel so loved, once again, by our "village" and feel so blessed to have you behind us. It is truly amazing the things that can be done when you rally together for a like cause. Thank you for loving our family and caring about Henry and his future. We are eternally grateful.
Thank you for taking the time to read my long emails and learn something about Barth Syndrome :) Thank you for celebrating Henry's 4th birthday with us. Thank you for forwarding my emails to your friends and family, broadening our bandwidth, which makes our Barth Community stronger. Thank you for sharing my posts on Instagram and Facebook with your networks. Thank you for wearing your shirts at some point this week. Thank you for your thoughts and prayers, for Happy Heart Week 2016 and for Henry and his Barth buddies. Thank you for honoring all of the boys and men that have Barth Syndrome, the ones to come, and the ones that have gone before us. Thank you for giving your money to the greater cause of finding a cure for Barth Syndrome. IT ALL WILL MAKE A DIFFERENCE, I am certain! Great advancements are on the horizon; we are hopeful! Thank you for raising our hope to a new level this past week. A couple of things in closing this amazing week... * It is never too late to donate! If for whatever reason you missed this week, any donation any time will always be so greatly appreciated. https://www.barthsyndrome.org/donate * If you donated through PayPal, let me know so that I can let the Foundation know to designate your contribution to HHW2016. * If you have any questions about any of the facts, our story, or anything Barth related, I am happy to talk! * If you have any suggestions as to how to better communicate, raise awareness, or raise funds, please let me know! Would love feedback on how to go forward with HHW in the future. * Shop on Amazon through AmazonSmile, setting your charity as Barth Syndrome Foundation. It is the exact same as regular Amazon, but they will donate 0.5% of every purchase you make to your non-profit of choice! http://smile.amazon.com/ * Please find us on Facebook and "like" the Happy Heart Walk page, showing your support to the masses. https://www.facebook.com/happyheartwalk/ Thank you. Thank you. Thank you! Can't say it enough. Will keep you posted on the final number :) With oh-so Happy Hearts, John, Meg, Grady, Henry, and Wesley One blessed Mama... Happy Heart Week 2016 mid-week update and encouragement...
First, thank you to everyone that has already donated! So far we have raised $11,500! This is great, and I am hopeful that we can still surpass last years amount of $20,000. Each year, the total amount raised has doubled, and while that seems like a very lofty goal, we sure would like to at least raise more than we did last year! 2 more days of Happy Heart Week 2016! Please consider: * If you would have purchased t-shirts for your family if we had them for 2016, consider donating at least that amount this year. * Ask your company if they could match your donation! So many will! Not only is that a terrific way to get more money to the Foundation, it's a great way to raise awareness, as I'm sure they have never heard of Barth Syndrome. * Consider sharing one of our posts through Facebook to your networks, or through email to your family and friends * “Like” our Happy Heart Walk Facebook page to show your support https://www.facebook.com/happyheartwalk/ Friends, I am sending this email with such a heavy heart. As we celebrate Henry's 4th birthday this week, another family in our Barth community has lost their son. A little 14 month old boy, Josh, bravely lost his battle against Barth Syndrome this weekend awaiting a heart transplant. Please keep his family in your thoughts. I don't tell you this to guilt you into giving, I tell you this so that you know how real this is. It is imperative that we do all that we can to raise awareness and funds for the research being done to treat and/or cure this life-long disease. The bandwidth of people that know of and choose to support Barth Syndrome is so narrow, making the need so much greater. Boys are dying at an unfair, unnecessary young age. Let's change this. Thank you all for your support, love, and donations! Lastly, get your old Happy Heart Walk shirts out and plan to wear them Friday (tomorrow) and Saturday. Go for a walk in honor of all of the boys and men suffering from Barth Syndrome, and send us a picture! With Hopeful Hearts, John and Meg www.happyheartwalk.com If you missed the posts on Facebook this week, here they are: May 2nd...Happy Birthday my precious 4 year old! We have been joking that we are really going to miss "3 year old Henry” (which I am), but I am so excited to see what this next year of life has in store for you. Words that describe you on your 4th birthday…selfless, patient, generous, silly, tough, content, thoughtful, caring, fun, sweet. We love you so incredibly much. FACT: Historically, boys with Barth Syndrome died of heart failure or infection by three years of age, but with improved diagnosis and appropriate medical treatment and monitoring of all symptoms, the survival rate and future of these individuals is much brighter. Please help us in our efforts to raise money that could help find a treatment or a cure (there currently is none; only symptom management as needed), allowing Henry the longest and most pain-free life that this world can offer. Thankful for your consideration. May 3rd...Thanks so much for all of the birthday love yesterday! Henry had a great birthday, still celebrating today :) Help us continue to beat the odds and celebrate MANY MORE BIRTHDAYS with him by donating money to crucial research being done for Barth Syndrome. Help find us find a treatment! Thank you to everyone that has already donated!! Feeling very loved! FACT: Barth syndrome is an x-linked recessive genetic condition, meaning that it can be transferred from mother to son. A mother who is a carrier of Barth syndrome usually shows no signs or symptoms of the disorder herself. There is a 50% chance that a boy born to a female carrier will have Barth syndrome, while girls born to a carrier have a 50% chance of being carriers themselves. All daughters of a male with Barth syndrome will be carriers, though none of his sons will be affected.I am not a carrier, which means that Henry's mutation is "de novo", the first of its kind. Grady and Wesley have also been tested and do not have the mutation. May 4th...FACT: Typically, boys with Barth Syndrome present with hypotonia (low muscle tone) and dilated cardiomyopathy (labored breathing, poor appetite, and/or slow weight gain) within the first few months after birth. Slow (actually no) weight gain was the first red flag that something was wrong with Henry when he was 2 months old. Thankfully, when he was 3 months old and still not growing, his pediatrician ordered several tests and sent us to a Nutritionist, who admitted Henry to Children's Hospital Oakland immediately. The next morning an echo-cardiogram (an ultrasound on the heart) was done after his EKG came back alarming, and Henry was diagnosed with Severe Dilated Cardiomyopathy and was in heart failure. We are forever grateful for concerned and proactive doctors that trusted their intuition, taking care of Henry before it was too late. He could have gotten very sick. We then spent 5 weeks in the PICU until Henry was stable on oral medication to come home. May 5th...FACT: By supporting the research the Barth Syndrome Foundation is funding, you are also supporting other diseases like diabetes, cancer, mitochondrial disorders, and heart conditions. Friends and Family! Happy Heart Week has officially started! Today, May 1st through Saturday May 7th, we will be raising money to support the Barth Syndrome Foundation. Please help us surpass what we raised last year, $20,000. We need all of your help, please! Any amount really makes a difference. And remember that many employers and companies will match your donations, so try asking yours this week! Donating is super easy...just click on the link below. Money goes straight to the Barth Syndrome Foundation and is tax deductible. And you will get the 2016 Henry card :)
https://www.barthsyndrome.org/donate/events/HappyHeartWeek2016 If you have been missing my posts on Facebook, here they are! I've been sharing facts about Barth Syndrome (and super cute photos of Henry), and will continue to do so this week. Please feel free to share these, and always let me know if you have any questions. FACTS: * Barth syndrome (BTHS) is a life-threatening, X-linked genetic disorder, primarily affecting males. It is caused by a mutation in the tafazzin gene. * Barth Syndrome is a multi-system disorder and has several debilitating symptoms including cardiomyopathy, neutropenia, underdeveloped skeletal system, muscle weakness, growth delay, exercise intolerance, and cardiolipin abnormalities. * One of the most life threatening symptoms of Barth Syndrome is Cardiomyopathy. Cardiomyopathy is an abnormal heart muscle. It makes it harder for your heart to pump and deliver blood to the rest of your body. Cardiomyopathy can lead to heart failure. Henry has Dilated and Left Ventricular Non-Compaction Cardiomyopathy. He spent the first 1 1/2+ years of his life in heart failure. He continues to take 5 medications twice daily to help keep his heart stable, and to hopefully repair some of the damaged heart muscle. * Neutropenia is another symptom of Barth Syndrome that can also be life threatening. Neutropenia is an abnormally low level of neutrophils. Neutrophils are a common type of white blood cell important to fighting off infections — particularly those caused by bacteria. This symptom can vary between those affected by Barth Syndrome...Henry has not had a problem with this yet, as far as we can tell through his routine lab work. And so far so good staying relatively strong and healthy while attending preschool. * Underdeveloped skeletal musculature, muscle weakness, and exercise intolerance can all be symptoms of Barth Syndrome. All muscles, including the heart, have a cellular deficiency which limits their ability to produce energy. Doesn't stop Henry from playing hard and cheering on his favorite basketball team, "Teff". Aka Steph Curry. * We all know that Henry is special. But did you know that he is 1 of only approximately 200 diagnosed males living in the world today?? A fact that proves the need for us to HELP! * "The cruelest irony about Barth Syndrome is how deceptively healthy those who have it may appear. A casual observer would never appreciate them to have such a devastating illness." ~Peter Barth, MD, PhD More facts and photos this week, as well as updates on how we are doing with fundraising. Please don’t forget to “like” the Happy Heart Walk page to see all of the updates and share our posts on Facebook. Thanks in advance! We are hopeful and excited going into this week! John and Meg Branagh www.barthsyndrome.org Happy Heart Walking Friends and Family! Due to the unforeseen craziness of life with a newborn baby on top of the daily grind with three little boys, Happy Heart Walk 2016 is going to look a little different. I simply could not pull it all together in reasonable time this year. Knowing that we would love to carry on this wonderful and sweet event next spring and for many more years to come, we have decided to try something new for 2016. Thank you for remembering and inquiring about the Happy Heart Walk over the past couple of months; many of you have asked to make sure you didn’t miss something! You are right, it normally occurs in February. In 2 short weeks, we are going to begin a campaign centered around Henry’s birthday, May 2nd. Birthdays are always such a sweet celebration. But even more to us now, birthdays remind us in a very literal way of our gratefulness for each breath everyday and our time together here on earth. For Henry’s 4th birthday (yes, 4…wow!!), we are going to celebrate his beautiful life; his challenges with Barth Syndrome; the other boys and men suffering from this disease; and the great work the Barth Syndrome Foundation is currently doing. This virtual celebration will happen the whole week of Henry’s birthday, Sunday May 1st through Saturday May 7th. Through an email and social media campaign, we are hoping to raise a similar amount that we would have through an actual Happy Heart Walk event, and possibly more, considering anyone around the world can participate! I will send another email May 1st to kick the campaign off, but mark your calendars now, and in the meantime, please thoughtfully consider how you can help us make a difference this year. All donations can be made directly to the Barth Syndrome Foundation (https://www.barthsyndrome.org/donate/events/HappyHeartWeek2016) and will be tax deductible. We can assure you, the money will be extremely well used and is so, so greatly appreciated. This years medical grants were just awarded and it is very exciting to see the possibilities on the near horizon. And these are funded with our money. Our everyday hope and prayer is for a long and vibrant life for Henry, and this will only be possible with a treatment or cure, and ultimately through the grace of God. Please let us know if you have any questions! And we would so appreciate you sharing our cause with your networks! Find and “like" the Happy Heart Walk page on Facebook, and watch for informative and exciting posts in the coming days and weeks! And all donors will receive this year’s Henry Card :) As always, thank you for your prayers, care, concern, and continued support. We are forever indebted and grateful! With Thankful and Happy Hearts, John, Meg, Grady, Henry, and Wes Branagh **Quick Henry Update** Since I was MIA with the blog this year, here’s a very quick update on Henry…He is doing great! Can hardly believe he is almost four! His heart function continues to hover just below the “normal” functioning range; he is thoroughly enjoying his 2 morning a week preschool class; he can ride his bike with training wheels like a champ around the back patio; he loves to dance; he is Grady’s #1 fan, always; he is so quick to forgive; he has proven to be quite patient and encouraging in his new role as Big Brother; he loves to be silly, and loves to be tickled! I would love to start up the blog again, and will keep you posted on when that happens :) Also, we have decided to attend the Barth Syndrome bi-annual Family and Medical Conference again this summer…it is a really big deal for us to go, but we decided that it was important to be there, for many reasons. More info to come on this~ for more information about Barth Syndrome, www.barthsyndrome.org Thank you, thank you, thank you! Where to even begin…another wonderful day to go down in the books for the Happy Heart Walk! Thank you to everyone who participated, both near and far, in so many different ways. It is so fun to see everyone here (in California) congregate together, but it is equally amazing to hear of stories and see photos of people gathered all over the country (and world!) wearing their Happy Heart Walk shirts, walking in Henry’s honor, donating to help the cause, or praying for him and his Barth brothers and the research that is happening at this moment. We are constantly inspired by those who so selflessly want to help us pull off an event like this, and humbled by those who give money to the Barth Syndrome Foundation, often without knowing us too well. People are good in this world, and it is a gift to witness this goodness and beauty first hand. A small attempt at thanking and honoring everyone who took part in the Happy Heart Walk 2015… Thank you to our amazing list of Sponsors this year…what an impressive list it was! All businesses genuinely and gladly offered goods and services to help make our day special and effective. What made the local sponsorships even more special was that they are all businesses that we frequent as a family. This is very nice, as asking people (that you know and see often!) for money can be difficult; but everyone gave generously and with a smile on their face, wishing us well as we go forward. Many of them donated in hopes that their gift would help us to raise more awareness and more funds for the Barth Syndrome Family. So if you were privileged to partake in the fabulous lunch, and want to donate to compensate for a great meal, please do so here :) We are so grateful for your willingness to support us, Sponsors, and look forward to a lasting partnership with you for the years to come! Whole Foods Lafayette was our main sponsor again this year, providing sausages and guacamole for lunch, treats for the kid’s check-in table, and take-home bags for all of the participants filled with coupons. Whole Foods Lafayette continues to be our go-to spot for groceries, and it was a pleasure working with them again this year! Diablo Foods was a new sponsor this year, and also generously helped with lunch by providing potato salad and hot dogs. Costco was another new sponsor this year, donating money to help out with the picnic. Plates and utensils, buns, condiments, humus, chips, and drinks we all provided by Costco! And Bakesale Betty of Oakland donated her famous slaw, a perfect addition to the picnic! (And way better than us making slaw for 200!) Susie Cakes Lafayette donated the delicious cupcakes again this year. Chick-fil-A donated the chicken biscuits for breakfast, and Peet’s Coffee Orinda donated the coffee this year…a much needed, warm pick-me-up before walking the Reservoir. And Be Real Foods, a great new company out of Orinda, donated their yummy gluten free kids snack bars (can be found at Diablo Foods and soon Whole Foods). Chow Lafayette gave money to help supplement the day. Pear Tree Greetings graciously donated the darling Henry photo cards (that I hope everyone received! If not, I have extra, so let me know!) And thanks to great pricing from Brian at Badskulls t-shirt printing, we were able donate nearly 75% of the sales price of the shirts straight to the Barth Syndrome Foundation. Five Little Monkeys in Walnut Creek and Jelly Belly gave great gifts for the winners of the Kid’s Sponsorship Contest, helping us get this new facet of the Happy Heart Walk going this year and giving the kids a little extra incentive to help raise money. Family Style Photography took all of the photos again this year…what a talented friend we have :) To see wonderful photos from our special day, visit http://familystylephotos.com/happyheartwalk. You may download the images or order prints directly from mpix.com from this site. Thank you to everyone who purchased t-shirts! We sold and sent 275 shirts all over the country, and would love to see photos of you wearing them! Please email photos to happyheartwalk@gmail.com or post them to the Happy Heart Walk Facebook page. As I said earlier, nearly 75% of the sales price was donated directly to the Barth Syndrome Foundation, so this was a huge contribution in our total fundraising efforts. Wear your shirts proudly throughout this year to continue to raise awareness in your community! Thank you to my dear friends in Fort Worth who happily organized the Texas event, completely on their own accord. Thank you for rallying a team to run in Henry’s honor; thank you for encouraging your kids to participate; and thank you for bearing with the crazy Texas weather :) Hoping that next year will be warm and sunny, on the day that it is suppose to be! Thank you to everyone who made it out to the event, in California or Texas! Thank you for taking precious time out of your weekend to spend with us, physically showing your support and care. Hope you had fun, felt loved, learned something new, and were inspired to take action in the areas of life that are important to you and others in your community. We certainly felt VERY loved by you! Thank you to everyone who has donated to the Barth Syndrome Foundation. By check, online, through the GoFundMe account, cash…every dollar makes such a difference! As I have said many times now, we have been made aware how difficult it is for rare diseases to find funding. There are so many important and exciting research projects happening right now in regards to Barth Syndrome, many without secure future funding. If they do not get funded, they cannot continue with their research. It is this research that opens the doors to the possibility of finding a treatment or a cure for Barth Syndrome. This directly affects Henry’s life and well-being. I will post a grand total of what the Happy Heart Walk 2015 raised in the coming weeks! Earlier last month (February is National Heart Month…the reason Happy Heart Walk takes place in February), the American Heart Association named the “Top Cardiovascular Disease Research Advances in 2014” and a Barth Syndrome Foundation funded project is included on this list! http://blog.heart.org/top-ten-cardiovascular-disease-research-advances-2014-summary/ http://blog.heart.org/new-methods-lead-discoveries-rare-heart-disease-post-stent-vessel-changes/ These are the types of exciting things that your donations go towards! Thank you to Dr. Robert Ryan and his Team at Children’s Hospital Oakland Research Institute (yes, Oakland, CA!) for coming out to the walk this year! Thank you for all of your efforts in finding a treatment that could actually help in the daily life of someone with Barth Syndrome. We are grateful to have such a caring and supportive team of people working on this in our very own backyard! Thank you to the families whose kids participated in the Kid’s Sponsorship Walk! What an honor it is to teach our kiddos about the importance of supporting and helping others in need. And so special to have this done by our dearest friends, who know and love Henry. Lastly, thank you to our wonderful team of helpers this year! We would not have been able to do it without you! Thank you for your ideas, time, energy, inspiration, and extra hands. It was our pleasure having you on our team and we are so thankful for your selfless support. Thank you everyone! Even if your support this year extends only to reading this post, we are grateful for your concern and would love you to jump on board the Happy Heart Walk next year! We feel so supported by our community and so loved by our family and friends (and extended friends!) No matter how Henry’s life circumstance happens to change over the coming years, we are certain that we have the village to support us, and we will continue to have Happy Hearts, no matter what. We’d love to see photos and hear stories of how the Happy Heart Walk has touched you or your family. Please feel free to send photos and stories to happyheartwalk@gmail.com. To see the Lamorinda Weekly article, click here. To read more about what Barth Syndrome is, click here. To donate to the Barth Syndrome Foundation, please click here. Save the Date!
Happy Heart Walk 2015 Saturday, February 28th details to follow If you would like to be on the planning team and help in all sorts of ways, please e-mail me, happyheartwalk@gmail.com! Planning meeting Thursday, Jan. 8 @ 8pm. If you live in the Dallas/Fort Worth Area and want to run in the Cowtown 10K and/or meet for a picnic after, please email happyheartwalk@gmail.com. Teams for the 10K are being formed now. I was honored this Fall to be asked to write an article about Henry and the start of the Happy Heart Walk. The Barth Syndrome Foundation is the sole organization to support Barth Syndrome and the families affected. They are also solely responsible for the funding of research to help find treatment. The Foundation has been very supportive of us, and has done a phenomenal job in providing our family, along with all of the others affected, with the medical advice and research that is so very crucial in the daily life of Henry and others like him. After Henry's diagnosis, we decided that we would help with fundraising efforts for BSF, so the 2014 Happy Heart Walk benefited them, as will the 2015 event. Click here to see the article. Henry is featured on page 17. Feel free to read through the Journal to hear about what the Foundation is up to, and to meet some of the other boys and men affected by Barth Syndrome. Barth Syndrome Foundations website: https://www.barthsyndrome.org/home I could not be more pleased with the Happy Heart Walk 2014...it was truly a beautiful success! It felt like a big party, a real celebration of life, community, love, and blessings. And we really were celebrating where we've come and how well Henry is doing right now. We have no idea what the years ahead will bring, but we hope that at every Happy Heart Walk that we can be celebrating where we are at present with the same joy that surrounded us all last Saturday. We were blessed with the most perfect weather, 70 degrees and sunny, which is definitely a risk for this time of year in the Bay Area. Nearly 200 people attended, and many many more participated, both here and afar. We were able to provide a delicious lunch, thanks to Whole Foods, Susiecakes, and Gianna's Baking Co...grilled sausages and hot dogs, chips and guac and hummus, fruit, slaw, cupcakes, and cookies, which all happen to be Henry's favorite foods (except the fruit :) ). It was such a fun day! We promoted important awareness about Barth Syndrome, and to top it off, we raised a lot of money to send to the Barth Syndrome Foundation! This was not even the main purpose of this event, but it sure is icing on the cake to a perfect day! Thank you to all who participated...Thank you to everyone who purchased a t-shirt...we sold 192 t-shirts total! Many of those will be worn around the bay area, but several will be worn in Texas, Oklahoma, and Arkansas! They looked so great as group...I hope you all liked them and will wear them throughout the year to continue to promote our cause. FYI, nearly 75% of what you paid for a shirt is being donated to the Foundation, thanks to a great local screen printing company I found that deeply discounted and donated a portion of the costs, Eastbay Screenprint in Concord. Thank you to all of the local businesses who donated goods and money to make our day and the walk so enjoyable. Peet's Coffee, the Lafayette Carwash, SusieCakes, Gianna's Baking Company, Boswell's, and Whole Foods were our sponsors this year, and we would love to have them participate in the years to come! It was important to us to have community support for this event that we are hoping only continues to grow each year. We are a Lafayette family and to have the places where we spend our time and money give back and support us and a cause so near and dear to our hearts was just great. There was such an awesome sense of community when we gathered that day, and that is something we want to continue to foster through this event. Thank you everyone who donated to the Barth Syndrome Foundation...in all, we are sending them approximately $10,000 (this includes online donations as well). WOW! We are overwhelmed with your generosity. I truly believe that with this money, the Foundation will be able to award a grant to someone who will make an advancement in finding a cure for Barth Syndrome. This gives me hope that the Happy Heart Walk could be an ongoing fruitful event that not only heightens awareness of Barth Syndrome and promotes an important need for community and support, but an event that raises necessary funds to help these boys in desperate need. Thank you to everyone who took a beautiful Saturday to spend with us. We hope that you considered it completely worth it :) We feel so loved, so supported, and so taken care of. And that is invaluable. We are blessed with an amazing family and an amazing group of friends. Thank you to all of the friends of friends that came that we don't even know so well! I told someone last week that it is those people that care about the betterment of this world more than themselves and their own to-do list that inspire me to do the same. What an act of love. Thank you to the people who sporadically and so willingly gave a helping hand! Down by the water, participants were greeted with Peet's Coffee upon arrival and given cute reusable goodie bags from Whole Foods filled with coupons, information about Barth Syndrome, and treats. The kids got their cheeks stamped with a red heart (thanks to a creative friend who brought supplies!) and sugared up on lollipops and heart palmiers before racing around the Reservoir. Meanwhile, several of the men hauled food, tables, etc up the hill to the picnic site. They got the picnic site all set up and manned the grills, headed up by Papa. I am so thankful for willing and intuitive people who see a need and get to work...countless people helped haul supplies, pick things up, set-up and organize, flip hot dogs, and make things look pretty, and most of them were not asked to do a thing...they simply did it. Thank you to all of these people who enabled John and I to enjoy the moment and walk with the group, rather than set-up and fret over the details :) (A minor detail I failed to make sure was taken care!) Thank you to out-of-town friends who bought shirts and/or gathered in Henry's honor and in support of the Happy Heart Walk. We had people all over California, in Texas, and in Tulsa who came together promoting happy hearts. It is so special to know how wide the love and support runs. Thank you to Jake Brooks, a dear friend, for volunteering to photograph the day...he is super talented in this hobby of his, and always does a fantastic job capturing the overall atmosphere along with all of the details of an event. And always manages to get the best out of people, all without being obtrusive. We are so thankful for these images that will help us relive the day for years to come. Check out his site! Family Style Photography. The Happy Heart Walk is under the blog pulldown. Thank you to everyone who offered to help next year! I will definitely take you up on it! Stay tuned... We made it into the Lamorinda Weekly...click to see the article. Thank you Lamorinda Weekly! A lastly, thank you to Whole Foods Lafayette. We were blown away by their support and generosity. They were eager and glad to help, and made me feel like it was truly their pleasure and that is so nice when you are asking others for help and money. We were already a fan (and very regular shoppers) and now we are so much more...didn't know that was possible! Thank you for supporting our family like you did. Thank you to everyone who "liked" their Facebook page, posted about the event, and promoted the Happy Heart Walk on social media! If you know me, that is not my forte, but I am trying to get better! Thank you for picking up my slack and helping us raise awareness and money in this way! Thank you, thank you, thank you! Thank you for loving us the way you do, thank you for taking care of us the way you do, and thank you for caring about Henry and other boys just like him and wanting to make their lives better. We are so loved. We are so blessed. And we are so grateful to call you friends! To see photos from the day and all over the country where people were sporting their Happy Heart Shirts, click on the Photos tab above. |
AuthorI am privileged to be the mommy of 3 beautiful and wonderful little boys, one of which has an awful disease, Barth Syndrome. Archives
May 2018
A happy heart makes the face cheerful. |