Munsterlander
Member
Preface all this with an apology for taking so long to get it posted.
A while back in the pen turning forum I started a thread (I don't know how to reference it - it was called "question about charities") about donating pens to give to kids with muscular dystrophy. They missed out on a yearly highlight this summer because virtually all of the MDA camps were cancelled due to fears of an H1N1 outbreak.
I had something like 75 pens pledged in less than 24 hours, most publicly, some privately. Within days a steady stream of packages started showing up at the door from all over the country.
Originally the MDA office in Towson, MD was going to have a picnic on Aug 23rd to have something fun for the kids. That got moved to Sat Sept 26th, which coincidentally turned out to be the one weekend in about a 3 month period that I was scheduled to be out of town. So my sister, Carmen, and my oldest daughter, Emily, who has been a counselor at the camp 2 or 3 times, went to the rescheduled event in my place and handed out the pens.
I got up to the MDA office the Wednesday before and gave pens to each of the staff members. As I mentioned in the original post, these people are just fantastic - they pour their hearts into a job that doesn't pay that well, requires constant fund-raising, and is emotionally extremely hard as children with most forms of muscular dystrophy die young. My son was 20 when he passed - and as I've told you all before, it was his passing that got me into pen turning, both as memorial gifts for his very supportive friends and, now, as an ongoing way to raise funds for MDA.
I promised to post pics, so give me a few minutes before any replies and I'll put up several posts with a bunch of pics. Might take me a bit to get the resolution stuff figured out - I have all these pics in high resolution - hope they look ok when reduced for uploading...
I cannot thank those of you who contributed enough. The MDA staff members had no idea what I was talking about when I first put the idea to them - but they were very excited and impressed when I came by with the pens, and the pens got a very enthusiastic reaction from the kids.
russianwolf, rick1708, fafow, fritz64, super dave, mudpuppie, dntost, rollerbob, jkeithrussell, jim15, livertrans, hrigg, wolftat, garymcg, ed4copies - THANK YOU! I'm proud to be associated with the guys & gals here on IAP.
(if I missed someone, pls pm so I can fix it!)
First pics below are of the box of pens (few had already been handed out) and an information sheet I gave out. The little white tags you see on the pens had the name, city, state of the turner.
A while back in the pen turning forum I started a thread (I don't know how to reference it - it was called "question about charities") about donating pens to give to kids with muscular dystrophy. They missed out on a yearly highlight this summer because virtually all of the MDA camps were cancelled due to fears of an H1N1 outbreak.
I had something like 75 pens pledged in less than 24 hours, most publicly, some privately. Within days a steady stream of packages started showing up at the door from all over the country.
Originally the MDA office in Towson, MD was going to have a picnic on Aug 23rd to have something fun for the kids. That got moved to Sat Sept 26th, which coincidentally turned out to be the one weekend in about a 3 month period that I was scheduled to be out of town. So my sister, Carmen, and my oldest daughter, Emily, who has been a counselor at the camp 2 or 3 times, went to the rescheduled event in my place and handed out the pens.
I got up to the MDA office the Wednesday before and gave pens to each of the staff members. As I mentioned in the original post, these people are just fantastic - they pour their hearts into a job that doesn't pay that well, requires constant fund-raising, and is emotionally extremely hard as children with most forms of muscular dystrophy die young. My son was 20 when he passed - and as I've told you all before, it was his passing that got me into pen turning, both as memorial gifts for his very supportive friends and, now, as an ongoing way to raise funds for MDA.
I promised to post pics, so give me a few minutes before any replies and I'll put up several posts with a bunch of pics. Might take me a bit to get the resolution stuff figured out - I have all these pics in high resolution - hope they look ok when reduced for uploading...
I cannot thank those of you who contributed enough. The MDA staff members had no idea what I was talking about when I first put the idea to them - but they were very excited and impressed when I came by with the pens, and the pens got a very enthusiastic reaction from the kids.
russianwolf, rick1708, fafow, fritz64, super dave, mudpuppie, dntost, rollerbob, jkeithrussell, jim15, livertrans, hrigg, wolftat, garymcg, ed4copies - THANK YOU! I'm proud to be associated with the guys & gals here on IAP.
(if I missed someone, pls pm so I can fix it!)
First pics below are of the box of pens (few had already been handed out) and an information sheet I gave out. The little white tags you see on the pens had the name, city, state of the turner.
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