February 7, 2009 Newsletter
UNITED WE PLAN!
We welcomed a few new people to the group which is always a time for sharing stories and experiences. It made for a very pleasant round table. Thomas & Sara Koons have moved back to Redding and are glowing with the prospect of a new baby due in a few months! We will all enjoy watching this and are very excited for them.
We talked about many subjects before our main topic which is the upcoming “Family & Friends” event March 22nd. For a long time people have been saying that no one knows anything about MS but know more & more people who have or know someone with MS. Who better to educate the public than those of us with first hand knowledge? Our objective is just that, by putting on a MS Awareness Day March 22nd. Collectively we all carry such a huge amount of knowledge to share about MS & living with MS. It seems that we have a certain responsibility to share & pass this information on to others. By sharing & educating we are once again serving a two fold purpose. This will help to satisfy other’s curiosity, which in turn helps us all by the increased understanding, which leads to support based on knowledge. It takes awareness before people can rally behind a cause and we think that it is about time we do something!
Several people have already stepped up & volunteered to help. This is just the beginning and we hope we can count on some of you to come forward also. We still need people to help with setting up & closing. Kitchen help with coffee & food (the MS Society is providing the food). We would like to have a raffle and could use help with that the day of the event. We need to collect raffle prizes and have a non-profit tax ID letter for anyone wanting to make a tax deductible donation. If anyone can help with this just let us know at hopefourms@yahoo.com and we will give you this letter. We are also looking for more contributors to set up information tables about their services. There is no charge for this and all we ask is that it be something useful and of interest to the MS community. This is your chance to be heard so please help! To volunteer or with any questions write to our e-mail address at hopefourms@yahoo.com. Is anyone interested in doing a crafts booth? Give us your ideas and let`s do something to put a good face forward to the community and let them know we are here.