March for Maddie Giveaway 2010

For the second year in a row, I (along with the most excellent Burgh Team) will be participating in the March of Dimes Pittsburgh March for Babies on May 23rd in memory of Madeline Spohr, who passed away on April 7th, 2009.

For those who don’t know about Maddie – she was born on November 11th, 2007 – more than 11 weeks too early. She spent 68 days in the NICU while her parents feared for her life. Luckily, Maddie made it through that tough time and was a beautiful vibrant, happy little girl, until that terrible day last April when she came down with the respiratory infection that took her life.

Sadly, the Spohr’s aren’t the only family to go through something like this. Every year, too many babies are born too early. Too many babies are born with birth defects. Some survive and some don’t.

My own grandmother went through something very similar to what the Spohrs went through. Her first child, a son named Donny was born back in the 1940’s. Like Maddie, he was a happy, vibrant, smiling little boy whom everyone loved. But he was born with Spina Bifida. My grandma struggled to keep him healthy. She took him to every doctor she could find, every specialist that would see her. She spent days on a dirty train taking him to the mayo clinic to be seen. But sadly, all those experts said the same thing – he would not survive very long.



As he got older, and sicker, a doctor told my grandma that he would most likely not survive his next illness, like a cold. Imagine the terror my grandma felt, trying to keep her son healthy – trying to keep him alive. And as hard as she tried, she couldn’t. No one could. And when he was only a toddler – somewhere around the age of two – Donny died.



But the March of Dimes is trying to change things for the better, and it’s working. And with our help, things can only get even better.

Like last year, I am holding a giveaway to help raise money for this wonderful, worthy cause.
For any donation of $5 to my walk page (click the button at the bottom), I will enter you into a drawing to win a Box ‘O Goodies. That means you get an entry for each $5 you donate – So $10 gets you two entries, $15 gets you three, and so on.

And like last year, the Box O’ Goodies will include a variety of goodies that will include:

* A $50 Target gift card

* A $15 Starbucks gift card

* Assorted goodies to be determined after I pick the winner (so I can gear it towards the winner a little based on gender, location, etc) but will include at least one book, something yummy, something weird (because…duh), something kid-related if you have any, and who knows what else, but I’m good at gift baskets so fear not.

(One of my favorite bloggers won last year and after receiving the package, proclaimed it a “treasure chest,” so it’s definitely a good prize)

Once you donate, please leave a comment here so I can figure out who is who (if you want to remain somewhat anonymous on the amount of your donation, you can comment here that you donated, and then email me to let me know who you are and the amount so I can give you the appropriate number of entries (sugarmag_at_live_dot_com).

You don’t have to know me to enter. I don’t care if you’ve never commented before. I don’t care if you’ve never been here before. What I care about is doing the best we can to help a great cause. Because no one should ever go through what my grandma, and the Spohrs, and so many other families have endured.

Although I love to give people stuff and usually die of anticipation before every birthday or holiday, I am going to drag this one out a little to give more folks a chance. The walk is on May 23rd, and I will keep the contest open until the week before to make sure we can raise as much money as we can for the March of Dimes.

Help out if you can and feel free to pass this along.

THANKS!!