Yard Sale/Bake Sale/Silent Auction Fundraiser for Kai Lucas

My friend Susan (she ran the daycare Kai attended as a baby) and my mom Roberta organized a fundraiser for our family. They wanted to raise money for us to help pay for food costs and other bills while staying at the hospital with Kai. I was so impressed by everyone's hard work! Especially Susan and Roberta who worked on the fundraiser for over six weeks. Roberta sent out letters to over 100 businesses and followed up with phone calls and visits to get donations for the silent auction. Susan spent hours in her garage organizing all of the things donated for the yard sale. Many of the things she picked up herself. Roberta contacted local radio stations and her cousin even sent notices of the event to the local news channels. She also had 400 colored bracelets made with Kai's name and this blog address on them.

The day of the event went great! So many people showed up to help set up and brought baked goods to sell. I was able to attend and am so grateful for everyone's support. There was tons of stuff for the yard sale, there was a bake sale and three tables lined with silent auction items to bid on! My uncle Charles came and set up his DJ equipment and played some awesome music for the customers. My sister Rachel offered face painting and sketches for donation. There was soda and water in ice chests for sale. All day there was a steady flow of customers. It was a huge success! About mid way through the day, one of the local news channels showed up and taped Roberta talking about Kai, our family and why they had put the whole thing together and aired the show later that day.

I was not able to spend the whole day at the fundraiser. I had driven over to Yakima from Seattle where Kai was admitted for the event. It is a two and a half hour drive, and Kai was having a rough weekend, so I wanted to get back to him. The next day Susan drove over to Seattle and brought a bag of cash to the hospital for us. I was shocked at the amount of money raised. They raised over $4,500 in one day!

 When the news station aired the story about the event, they said that the money raised from the fundraiser would help pay for medical bills and adaptive toys.  Since Seattle Children’s Hospital took great care of Kai and provided him with everything he needed, the money was used for something even more valuable. What she and everyone else involved did was give me time with my son. That is worth the world to me, and I am just so thankful for everyone's help.  Kai was in the hospital for the better part of eight months and our savings was gone. His medical status continued to decline even with all the medical interventions we tried to stable him out. All I wanted was to spend whatever time I had left with him and because of everyone's help I was able to do that. Thank you to everyone for supporting Kai and our family!