Devin'sMile ~ DevinSmile

CAUSE AN EFFECT CHIPOTLE FUNDRAISER

for THE DUP15Q ALLIANCE - August 24,  2017

WHEN:    THURSDAY 08/24/2017
TIME:      5:00 pm to 9:00 pm
PLACE:    CHIPOTLE @ 405 W 49th Street, Hialeah

We enjoyed a wonderful evening with friends and family and Chipotle donated 50% of the proceeds from that night to the Alliance.    What a great way to help!   A night out, no cooking and supporting this amazing organization with us.   We were able to raise $236 for the Alliance! Thank you to Chipotle and all of you who continue to support us every step of the way.

(Dup15q Alliance provides family support and promotes awareness, research and targeted treatments for Chromosome 15q Duplication Syndrome)

What an amazing experience – from the planning to the actual day, our hearts have been filled with so much love, excitement, anxiety (me!) and all around pride in our Walk – THE Walk for our babies.   From the very beginning, we (my co-coordinator Christine and volunteer Lilly) knew this would be big for us, we didn’t realize just how big!   Christine found an amazing venue, the Homestead Miami Speedway and got to work right away to make sure we could secure it.  Once done, we began the fun phase of overloading everyone with FB posts, emails and requests!  We had several companies donate food, water and raffle items.  And all our family and friends where such good sports, I kept warning about the info overload but in the end, we had a turnout of about 250 people!   And EVERYONE happily supported our Walk by contributing time, effort, energy and all around help.

The day of was a beautiful Miami day, crisp and bright and of course HOT! – we were concerned with rain, but it didn’t come thank goodness.  All our wonderful volunteer staff showed up bright eyed and bushy tailed and everyone got to work setting up our amazing venue.  At 8 on cue, everyone started to arrive and by 9 am about 250 people were walking a 5K including several Dup15q families.  That was the most amazing thing to me, to see so many of the families that share Devin’s Syndrome…  to feel so close to people you don’t really know, but deep down you feel you do because you share the same type of worries, concerns and joys all at once.  

We are beyond blessed with the love and support we received and are absolutely blown away by the generosity of everyone - between the online registrations, sponsorship and donations and day of and raffle's, we raised close to $17,000 for the Alliance. 

To sum up the experience, right after the walk, Christine, me, Lilly and several of those that closely helped where already strategizing for next year (taking apart what we need to change, keep and step up!!!!)!  We can’t wait and look forward to 2017!   - enjoy some pictures of the day :)