"We make a living by what we get, but we make a life by what we give" (Norman MacEwan)
April 13th was an awesome day! We went to Bracebridge for a Birthday Carnival put on by a community we didn’t know! The connection started with my Rodan and Fields skincare business. Katie Peleikis is also an R+F consultant and we are friends on Facebook and part of the same community of Rodan and Fields consultants but we had never met in person. She saw my posts about our fundraising initiatives for James and quickly made the connection with a boy named Ethan who along with her two kids, Phenix and Journey, helped fundraise for his SDR surgery a couple years ago. She told her kids about James and his acceptance to the same surgery and Phenix looked at Journey and said, “let’s do it!“ They took out their Ethan jar, wrote James’ name on it and Journey immediately went to her piggy bank to place the first donation.
Seeing this moved Mike and I to tears. Kids helping kids. So wonderful to see their hearts of compassion through this image of a jar with James’ name on it. This act of genuine kindness would have been enough on it’s own but little did we know, they were just getting started! Phenix (10 years old) and Journey (7 years old) decided to combine their birthday celebrations and host a community birthday carnival all in support of James! When we saw this announced on Facebook, we were absolutely amazed and overwhelmed that people outside our local community would be so willing to help us. They blew us away by how they rallied the Bracebridge and larger Muskoka community to put on this event. Everything from the arena where the event was held to the giant inflatable, bouncy castle, donations of silent auction items, cotton candy, magician, giant plinko and lots of games and prizes. They even had Santa Claus connections to encourage people to attend the carnival in support of James!
They were featured in their local radio station, "The Moose" and given the chance to talk about the carnival twice!
Also, Boba nominated Phenix and Journey to be Country 102’s Local Heroes for their efforts to help James and they won!! Their certificates say “Thanks for taking some time to do something nice for someone else. We see you, we appreciate you!!” 💚💚
Here's a video of the kids inviting everyone to their Birthday Carnival:
Leading up to the carnival date, they were featured in their local newspaper!
Here's the article:
The kids loved the bouncy castle!
Media footage of the event:
Here's an article that was written after the event:
The power of generosity that we experienced stems from Katie showing her children how to care for others. She has demonstrated to Phenix and Journey that life flows when you cultivate a giving heart and a generous spirit. She revealed to her kids that they too should reach out in helping another and by seeing them as worthy of their time and care.
We were handed a precious gift that day. We, as a family, were shown that there is good in this world, even outside of our known friendships. We were shown a huge act of random kindness. We experienced a community rally behind the hope of two children who proved that when given a valued role and a platform, they could use their energy and spirit to make a difference in someone else's world. What a precious gift to us all. We received the blessings of embrace in their community and the financial support of helping James get closer to his goal of the SDR surgery - $3430.15 was raised! We are so grateful! It certainly is a day we'll never forget and happy to have this blog as an archive to show James and Shae when they're older!