Powerful Friends

Did I mention that our photo won the contest at Jodie's blog? The one I wrote about here, asking you all to go vote for us? Wow, do I have great friends or what?! At my last count, our photo had 92 votes. Most of the votes are from people I know, not random people who voted. You, my friends, are powerful. Thank you for that!

And, now, I have yet another request for you. A way to use your power to make a difference in someone's life... not just make me happy and help win contests. (Although, please know I'm not belittling that!) It's an easy request, really. Help if you can, don't if you can't.

I met Jamie through my mom's group. I haven't seen her in years, but she still keeps in touch with one of my friends. Turns out that Jamie is in a serious crisis. Last October, her youngest child (she has three) was diagnosed with leukemia. He is TWO. His body is being hammered with chemo, and he is susceptible to infection. Imagine trying to keep your kid away from germs when you have two others bringing them in the house. How do you even go grocery shopping with him? You can't let him touch the nasty carts. Imagine the stress of seeing your baby so sick and near death. Doesn't get much worse than that.

Oh, but it does. Jamie's a stay-at-home mom with no income of her own, caring for her youngest round-the-clock. AND she split from her husband amidst all this turmoil because she couldn't take his violent physical abuse anymore. He was arrested, and now he's withholding money from her and has cut off her utilities and health insurance. Simply put, she is struggling - to make ends meet, to raise a family on her own, to pay for a divorce lawyer, to even afford gas so she can get her two-year-old to his chemo treatments.

Ever since I heard about all this turmoil in their lives, I have been praying about how I can help them. Now this is where you come in. There's a group called Phoneraiser that will make donations to help this family when we collect ink printer cartridges and old cell phones. Do you have any old phones or cartridges you can send to me? If so, please PLEASE let me know and I'll make sure they go to help Jamie's family.

Maybe you can't help in that regard? Then how about forwarding this information to your friends, or posting about it on your own blog? Help me spread the word.

Thank you, friends. I know we can make a difference in this family's life.

UPDATE: Thanks to my great friends, who gave me their phones and ink cartridges. I donated 22 phones and 10 ink cartridges. Awesome!