2010 Kat's Courage team: June 2010

Continuing the journey in His grip.......

After being diagnosed with invasive breast cancer on October 22, 2007, I realized that raising money for breast cancer makes me feel like I am doing something instead of feeling helpless against this disease. This diagnosis was a big shock to us. I was 40 years old, always very healthy and I had 2 small children(3&1). Breast cancer does NOT run in my family.
With a very supportive husband, family & friends, I made it through months of chemo and major surgeries. As of April 3,2008, by God's grace, I am cancer free!!!! I decided that I wanted to continue the fight against breast cancer by forming a team called ”Kat’s Courage” and raising money to help put an end to this disease. There were so many breast cancer survivor's who encouraged me during my fight. To see these women not only survive breast cancer but thrive after breast cancer, gave me this courage to face my fears. I can only hope to encourage others in the same way. We have just completed the 2010 Susan G. Komen 3-day for The Cure. We will continue to support different organizations that we believe in who are fighting against cancer and working for the cancer patient.

Monday, June 7, 2010

successful yard sale for cancer

We are so excited about the success of our first fund raising yard sale. We used an empty store space for our sale. The owner of the store, Henry Massey was a like a grand father to us and he passed away on Christmas day 2009 from cancer. This sale was in his memory. We have been overwhelmed with the support from all of our friends and family. We had an amazing amount of really great stuff to sort, clean, price and sell. We met our goal of $3,000 on Saturday and then on Sunday we made even more. We ended the weekend with the first drawing for one of our beautiful breast cancer quilts. The winner is a lady named Debbie Redd, who just finished chemo last Thursday for breast cancer. I was really excited that is was a sister breast cancer survivor who is just coming out of the fog of chemo and starting to get her life back a little. For those who didn't win the raffle, we will be keeping your name in the hat for the 2nd drawing on October 1. Let us know if anyone else wants tickets ($1 each or 6 for $5) or t-shirts or tote bags :) Just because the yard sale is over doesnt mean we are through. There is still not a cure and we still have some money to raise We met so many people this weekend who had stories of cancer. There was a girl who lost her 40 year old mother on Friday. It was hard for me to talk to her and hear her story since her mother and I are so close in age and her mother had a reoccurance that was found too late. My best friend Debra, who lost her own mother to cancer last year, was there to console her. We all wanted to take this girl home with us. There was a man and his daughter who drove from Fayetteville to meet us. He lost his wife in March to breast cancer. I met him on facebook and it was great to meet them in person and remind us of why we have been working so hard, missing time with our own kids for this cause. God showed us over and over that all of the work was worth it and that there is a purpose for all of this effort. Every penny that we raised will go to Henry County Cancer Services and Susan G. Komen for the Cure. Thanks for your support!