Johnson Family

Well, who knew updates would happen this quickly?? :)

The date of the Make-A-Wish formal has been changed from December 6, to Friday, November 30th at 7:30 in the evening. As I said before, I'm hoping as many people as possible will be able to be a part of this special day in some way. If you are able to come (!) please let me know.

Again, I will be posting new information as it is available to me. Once I've received the info on the child that we will be sponsoring that night, I will post that as well.

That's it for now, but I'm hoping that this is a great opportunity to make a huge difference in a sick child's life.

Thanks!

Hi Everyone!

The Opportunity:
I wanted to write and let you all know about a great benefit that is coming up in early December. A good friend of mine is organizing a formal benefit to sponsor a child from the Make-A-Wish foundation. As most of you already know, the Make-A-Wish Foundation was established in 1980 with the goal of enriching the lives of children with life-threatening medical conditions through its wish-granting network. Sponsorship of a child is a very expensive but extremely rewarding process. According to their website, the average cost of granting a wish to a terminally ill child is over $6000. As you can imagine, the benefits of sponsoring a child far outweigh the costs of doing so. Most of the time the boy/girl wishes to go to Disneyland or become a firefighter for a day. As of right now, I don’t have the detail on the child that is being sponsored, but official sponsorship is on the way from MAW!
For more information on the foundation itself, visit their website at http://www.wish.org

The Scoop:
While the minute details of the formal benefit are still being ironed out, I wanted to get the word out to you early enough so that you can be informed of the progression of the benefit and set aside the time to be able to attend. The tentative cost of attending the function is set at $40 per person. Again, these costs will go to negate the price of the ballroom, food, beverages and entertainment, while the remainder will go directly to MAW for the delegated child in order to help make their dreams come true. While at the benefit, there will also be an auction set up to raise additional funds for the sponsored child. Attendees will be able to bid on different goods and services donated by companies throughout the mid Michigan area. This is a great opportunity for you to come away with dinner to a great restaurant for a fraction of the face value and help a charity at the same time.

The Party:
The formal benefit will take place on December 6, 2007 in Lansing , Michigan and I hope you all can make it. However, since I realize that attending won’t be an option for all of you, I hope that you will all take time to prayerfully consider making a donation for the benefit. Any donation will be greatly appreciated both by the benefit organizer and the sponsored MAW child. Plus, all donations are tax deductible, so this is an excellent opportunity to capitalize on further deductions before the end of the year.

I will try to post additional details of the formal benefit as they become firmly established. For now, please consider this your personal invite to a very important benefit. If you have any questions feel free to email me at SuziQ_4@yahoo.com or call at 269-599-3344.

I’m really hoping that we can all band together to make this benefit extremely successful and grant a child the wish of a lifetime!

Thanks!
Suzi

The LaBarge clan at Gene the Pumpkin man this weekend. Gene himself was pricing the pumpkins. Dave and I got charged 7 bucks for 3 pumpkins, Carrie and James got charged 4 bucks for one pumpkin, and Ben and Janet got charged 11 bucks for 3 pumpkins. Apparently, you got charged according to the mood he was in that particular minute!

...here are some recent pictures of Levi and Nyah (at Van Buren State Park on Lake Michigan)