Tag: charity

Book Reading and Giveaway at the Ronald McDonald House!

Doing author events for charity is always a great experience: I get to help out a good cause and share my writing with people in one fell swoop. It’s like eating an egg wrapped in bacon wrapped in a waffle!

On a few Saturdays in May, I’ll be holding author reading and book giveaway events at the Ronald McDonald Houses in Denver and Aurora, Colorado! I’ll be joining Curt Fulster of C. Fulsty Books at the Aurora house on May 12 and at the Denver house on May 19. Both events will start at 6:30pm.

During the events, we’ll be reading from our books, answering questions, and giving away plenty of copies to the Houses’ families.

For those who don’t know, the Ronald McDonald House works closely with Children’s Hospital to provide housing, food, and other services to out-of-town families. Since there are only a handful of Children’s Hospitals in the world (and they all specialize in different ailments), a lot of families must travel out-of-state and even out of the country to stay near their kids.

These families have to worry about finding hotels, renting cars, paying for gas, and a bunch of other stuff you just don’t want to worry about when your kid’s in the hospital. So the Ronald McDonald House provides nice rooms, hot meals, and even entertainment to out-of-town families.

I didn’t just pick the Ronald McDonald House out of a random hat-o-charities, either. As I mentioned in the post about the charity month, my baby cousin was diagnosed with and died from brain cancer in 2000. I’ve also had a close friend deal with childhood cancer in recent years.

I live in Colorado, so I never stayed at either of the Colorado Ronald McDonald Houses while my cousin was receiving cancer treatments. But when I learned about the House, I couldn’t help but think “I can’t imagine what it’d be like to go through this if I lived out-of-state.”

Also, in 2006, I performed my Eagle Scout service project by supplying the Denver Ronald McDonald House with storage shelves. I raised over $3000, purchased a bunch of shelving racks from Costco, and instructed and collaborated with other boys to set them up. As far as I know, the RMH is still using the shelves.

The Ronald McDonald House helps out a ton of families, and I’m glad to help them in any way I can.  It’s going to be great!

Charity Donation Month

A few weeks ago, I was sitting in my underwear eating Doritos and watching The Smurfs when I thought, “You know, maybe I should get off my butt and do something that makes a difference.”

So I put on pants.

And then I decided to help out some charities. Throughout August, I’ll be partnering with Curt Fulster of C. Fulsty Books and donating all of my profits to CURE Childhood Cancer and Canines for Disabled kids!

CURE Childhood Cancer is committed to seeing childhood cancer cured during our lifetime. They’ve raised over $32 million over the last ten years to fund research and support kids and their families. CURE provides services to people in a variety of situations; they offer resources to families of recently-diagnosed kids, help out with meals, and even provide after-treatment services for families with kids done with treatment.

I didn’t choose to donate to CURE by throwing a dart at a spinning wheel-o-charities. I’ve been affected by childhood cancer twice. In 2000, my baby cousin, Parker Caldara, was diagnosed with brain cancer. She died shortly thereafter. And a few years ago, my friend Cade Humphreys  got cancer, too. He’s finished his treatments and is doing well (his screenings have all been excellent – no sign of the cancer returning!)

The other charity I’ll be donating to is Canines for Disabled Kids, which provides service dogs for children with disabilities. When it was founded in 1998, very few charities were willing to provide such dogs for disabled kids, (service dogs are pretty expensive.) By providing scholarships to these kids and their families, CDK was able to make service dogs available to a lot more children and reduce the time it takes for kids to get one.

CDK also emphasizes educating people about the importance of service dogs and offers resources for families interested in such a dog.

Keep an eye on the website for future posts about the charity month and please use the links above to visit the CURE and CDK websites. I’m proud to be able to help out these organizations throughout all of August.

And I’ll be wearing pants the entire time.