Service and Soup and Satisfaction, Oh My!!!

Phew!  It’s after midnight here in the Mitten State, and that means I am officially racing into February hot on the heels of S*U*C*C*E*S*S.  It is officially the end of my January charity~ God’s Kitchen/Gallery 303!  Too bad that I could also add Surgery and Sickness into those “S” categories above.  January is always, ALWAYS “sick month” in our house.  64-16-36!  And no, those aren’t my measurements…that is the temperature range in Michigan in any given 24 hour period.  It’s hard to stay healthy when you’re shoveling snow in your shorts 😉  Playing both nurse AND patient this month has kept me from detailing my first charity as much as I wanted to on this page.  From this point forward, I definitely want more blog action than Facebook action (…by the way, did you know there’s now a Facebook fan page you can follow for??  Check out https://www.facebook.com/mysuddenattack for my quick posts and fast links to my donation sites!)   But I digress.  Let’s get back to the important shiz… WE DID IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  [If you’re a parent of a toddler, or have been one in the last 10 years, you’ll know to insert a little Dora booty shakin’ action here].  When I thought this up and planned this out and posted it online, I got excited but I really didn’t think there was that fat of a chance that I would be able to pull this first charity off.  I thought getting HALF of the money might be pushing it.  I doubted that people I had never met before would find my little pee-on blog and Facebook page and commit to following me.  And I planned on most of you not sticking around to help hold me accountable for my actions.  BUT APPARENTLY I THOUGHT WRONG because slowly, but surely, so many of you are finding me and telling me that I was RIGHT 🙂 

             

~ SERVICE ~ 

 

[This is Mama Sue, mother of of my ex-high-school-boyfriend-who-is-still-like-a-brother-to-me.]

Oh, and I guess more importantly she is the reason that I chose God’s Kitchen/Gallery 303 to launch my project 😉   As soon as I posted “The List” of the 12 charities I had chosen to work on, she was on the phone with me immediately.  She was soooooo excited for me!  And that got me all excited too.  Mama Sue is a volunteer for God’s Kitchen and Gallery 303.  She is one of hundreds that they need.  She took me down there for my first time so I didn’t have to feel like an idiot.  She gave me a tour of the soup kitchen, the art gallery, the food pantry, and the baby pantry.  We toured the kiln room where volunteers fire thousands of pottery bowls for the main fundraising events.  She showed me where they assemble all of the Meals on Wheels deliveries for the home-bound.  We went past freezer after walk-in freezer of frozen food, and shelf after shelf after shelf of canned goods and non-perishable items that don’t last on there very long.  There are a LOT of hungry people, you guys.  And it goes fast.

                                                           

~ SOUP ~

 

Best high school friends EVER. Anna, Jilaine, Lindsay M, Erica, Krista, Sarah, Andrea, Lindsay D, and Becca (not pictured)  ❤

Back in December, I contacted the woman in charge of throwing the “Paint Parties” for my charity’s biggest fundraising event Soup’s On For All which you can read about here –> (http://soupsonforall.org/).  I am lucky enough to have friends that will drop almost anything to be there for each other.  They told me to just name the date and time and they would be there for OUR paint party.  We had appetizers and pizza and bubbly grown-up drinks and laughed until we cried.  I’m not going to name any names, but some of our bowl were preeeetttty interesting, to say the least! LOL!

Most of my friends were also able to attend the Soup’s On For All event with me this past Monday, February 28th at a downtown club here in Grand Rapids. We missed the ones that couldn’t! xoxo  

This fundraiser was so much fun.  There were 5 (five!) floors of different soups, breads, dips, cupcakes, candies, and drinks for you to sample until you could burst, all served by local celebrites and law enforcement.  There was live music and dancing.  There were raffles, and an amazing gospel choir that could be heard from top floor to bottom, and all of those painted bowls to take home as souvenirs to remind us that people go hungry EVERY. DAMN. DAY.

Oddly (and funny!) enough, we never saw our bowls put out!!! The volunteers told us that some of the boxes hadn’t even been opened yet, but we’re thinking they just didn’t want to hurt our feelings if people were subjected to our “art” and had a bad reaction  😉

 

~ SATISFACTION ~

So, you guys…like I said before….WE DID IT.  Not just me, because I told you from the second I started this that it was impossible for me to do alone.  WE did it.  Wanna know what WE did?!

~ WE exceeded the  $100.00 donation goal by twenty five extra dollars.  In addition to the $10 donated by my family, I would also like to acknowledge/thank/adore Jenn, Linnaea, Todd, Jamie, Kathy, Jeana, Ralph, Emilija, and Kim for their monetary contributions and support of my very first charity, as well an anonymous donor who sent $10 as well!!  Oooooh, the mystery!! 😀  If you donated as well, please let me know so I can shout you out some love.
~ WE as a group accounted for 11 tickets at the Soup’s On For All benefit at $50/ticket. I’m horrible at math, but I used my daughter’s sparkly blue calculator to figure out that we sent $550.00 to the fundraiser just on that one night.  And no, I am not kidding about needing that damn calculator.
~ WE collected 12 boxes of baby clothes, 6 bags of baby food and juice, 3 boxes of blankets, and 2 boxes full of diapers, as well as snowpants, jackets, boots, toys, sippy cups, formula, diaper bags, shampoo, conditioner, toilet paper, paper towel, and a huge helping of non-perishable food items all for God’s Kitchen.  So far.  I have more items still being donated over the next few days.  I will accept donations as long as they are coming at me.

I’d like to finish up with two last things I was very honored to receive.  Below is a copy of an email sent to my friend and donor Linnaea:

“From: Peggy Helsel <phelsel@ccwestmi.org>; To: <linnaea> Subject: Elizabeth’s Blog Sent: Wed, Jan 9, 2013 8:11:15 PM 

Good afternoon, Linnaea.  Thank you so much for your support of those we serve!  Thanks, too, for sending on the information about your friend Elizabeth and her wonderful challenge to support our community throughout the year.   I just loved her blog.  I am guessing that you all had a good time while painting your mugs!  Could you have Elizabeth contact me or send me her e-mail.  I would love to thank her and learn more.   Thanks again. Peggy Helsel Vice President of Philanthropy Catholic Charities West Michigan 360 Division Ave. S – Suite 3A | Grand Rapids, MI 49503 o: 616.551.5662 | c: 616.295.0509 www.ccwestmi.org”

V.I.P. folks.  She’s V.I.P. for this charity!!!  All smiles when I got that email.
And last but not least……

This is the cookbook I received from Mr. Rob Miller, executive director of God’s Kitchen/Gallery 303. I got to meet him in person and explain what I was doing with my blog. He thanked me and gave me the official Soup’s On For All cookbook, even though I assured him I would likely burn my house down if I tried to cook anything out of it. No joke. Take-out is my middle name.

And my apologies to anyone who is not a Michigan State Spartans fan, but my hubby and my baby girl are, and I missed them all night while I was at the benefit and I knew they would love this soup bowl as their souvenir!  Special thanks to my friend Jilaine (Mama Sue’s daughter and dedicated U of M fan) for wrestling it off the table before anyone else could have a crack at it 😉

Alright, I’m off to get some sleep for a few hours, and then I will be back later in the day to present February’s charity!  Peace out, trouts.

Want to see the complete list of charities I’ll be donating to this year???  Please check out that post by clicking here –> https://mysuddenattackofconscience.wordpress.com/2012/12/10/a-renowned-philosopher-once-said-get-on-your-feet-get-up-and-make-it-happen/