We are deep into our most important fundraiser of the year – the Matching Gift Challenge!! And we are pleased to tell you that it’s going really well! A wonderful group of people – listed below – put together a matching pool of $20,000 and challenged our donors to match it. And you all are doing just that!! We are about three quarters of the way to our goal, and we have until the end of the year to get all the way!
When we launched this fundraiser on November 11th, we told you about a new Team Summer kid named Payton. As you might recall, Payton is 12 years old and fighting brain cancer in Utah. Even with everything she is going through, she is busy helping other kids with cancer!
First, she reached out to six-year-old Hadlee, also in Utah. Before Hadlee got sick, she was a rising star, learning to play rock music on the guitar and the drums. Her family nicknamed her “Radlee” because she was so RAD!
But what happened this past January was not so rad.
It all started with Hadlee feeling nauseated. She would wake up in the middle of the night and get sick. Her pediatrician thought it was just a virus, but her bloodwork came back normal. So, the doctor ordered an MRI just to rule out the 1% chance that it could be something serious. Unfortunately, that 1% chance became Hadlee and her family’s worst nightmare. The MRI revealed a tumor the size of a golf ball in Hadlee’s brain. Within five hours of the news, she was having emergency brain surgery. Then came weeks of difficult radiation, and with it, all the challenging aftereffects. It has been a very rough year for Hadlee, to say the least.
No one knows better how awful it is to deal with brain cancer than Payton. It can affect the way you look and see and talk. She really wanted to let Hadlee know that she was not alone. So we all got to work, planning and plotting a great gift for Hadlee! Finally, the day of the big surprise was here!
The girls had a wonderful time connecting on Zoom! As Summer Dale, the founder of Team Summer, always said, “Only another kid with cancer can understand what it’s like to be a kid with cancer.” And age differences just don’t seem to matter. That was certainly true for these two!
Finally, it was time for Hadlee to get her gift. Payton wanted it to be something that could keep Hadlee’s mind off all that she was enduring — and something she could take with her whenever she went into scary medical situations. And this gift was not only perfect for all that, but it was also something that Hadlee had really been wanting: A super cool blue iPad of her very own!!
And so Hadlee never loses touch with the rock star that she is, we had a special little star engraved on her iPad, right next to her name!
Coming up soon, we’ll tell you more about all the good that Payton is doing for other kids with cancer. You won’t want to miss the next story. It is both heart-wrenching and beautiful!
If you have contributed to Team Summer, you’ve helped make moments like this possible! A quick reminder that we are in the middle of a VERY important fundraiser. The amount of money we raise has everything to do with how many gifts our Team Summer kids can give next year. From now until the end of the year, every tax-deductible* dollar you donate will be matched 100%…up to $20,000. Can you help us help these kids?
Or send a check to:
Team Summer
P.O. Box 9013
Atlanta, GA 31106
Much love,
Lynne Dale
President
Team Summer
This is the remarkable group of Team Summer supporters whose generosity created our matching gift pool. I am grateful beyond words!
HawkPartners
Specialty Center for Periodontics and Dental Implants
Jennifer Barnes
Holly and George Batchelor
Elizabeth and Frank Blake
Tracy Carusi
Jan and Avery DeLong
Melissa Demetrops
Robert and Janet Dobson
Linton and Priscilla Hopkins
Jeri Moran and Shaun Rawls
Nancy Neufer
Jeff and Betsy Sherry
