Have You Ever Tried To Tie Your Shoes With One Hand?

I wanted to let you all know about a 5K run/walk (www.pssweloveyou.com) my wife and I are putting on, at 8:00 AM on September 24th in Glen Ellyn, IL, to benefit Pediatric Stroke Survivors.   As many of you may or may not know, pediatric stroke touched our family 2 years ago when our son, Johnny, had a stroke while he was still in the womb. Thankfully, his stroke was relatively mild and thanks to some awesome therapists, he will make a full recovery.

But many kids aren't so lucky.  Some babies (1 in 4,000) have had more severe strokes in-utero, or have strokes as kids, which are harder to bounce back from.  These kids get some therapy from the state or insurance but it's rarely enough.  Our goal is to raise money to give these kids a chance to be "normal" and get them all of the therapy they can handle to be the best they can be. We can tell you first hand that therapy WORKS.  It's amazing how the brain can be re-wired and re-trained by qualified therapists.  Want to understand some of the challenges a stroke victim has?  Try tying your shoes with one hand.  Or cutting food with one hand.   Therapy will help these kids do the things many of us consider trivial.

I know times are tough out there, but if you have a little extra time or a little extra cash to help these kids, here are some options.

# 1)  Volunteer.  We can still use some volunteers for the race.  This will be about 2 hours of your time and will be a blast.  Mainly we need folks to stand at intersections to keep cars at bay while runners come by.  Handing out water and pre-race registration/packet pick up are also options.  Volunteering will be Saturday morning (9/24) from 7-9 AM and you'll leave feeling like a million bucks, we promise!

#2)  Make a donation.  EVERY SINGLE DOLLAR WE RAISE is going to a charity called CHASA (chasa.org) whose sole focus is helping pediatric stroke survivors.  Their expense ratio is ridiculously low, so if you donate $30, $30 goes to CHASA and ultimately to an hour of therapy for a kid.  Even one hour makes a big difference.

#3)  Run Forest, Run!  (Or Walk!).  $25 gets you into the race, an awesome T-shirt, a day-old Einstein Bagel at the finish-line and a warm, good-feeling inside. Nothing makes you feel better than a 30 minute jog, right?  Come on out and kick off your Saturday with a brisk fall jog down the beautiful Glen Ellyn Prairie Path. By the way, we already talked to Tom Skilling and he assured us it's not going to rain. :-)

For those of you who are already supporting the P.S.S. 5K, thank you!    For those interested you can sign up for #1, #2 or #3 above by clicking the button below.  Thanks for reading this and for all your support!