Merry Christmas!

As promised, we have a very special gift to give you!

For the last couple Christmases, that John Lennon song "So This is Christmas" has really bugged me. It's that line about "And what have you done?". I suppose a lot of people scratch their heads and wonder where the year went and what they have to show for it. Not here on Kyrie's blog, though. So, John, let me tell you what we've done.

So you know how a while back we all got together and thought that the way to save children from brain cancer was to instigate more research? And remember how we realized that the research came from raising money and the money came from, well, it came from anywhere and anybody? Remember how we sold t-shirts designed by Rhonna and beautiful bracelets made by Terry? Remember how you sent us those super recipes for our cookbook? Remember how Dr. Rosen spoke at the Wichita Baby Fare and how we all put together those happy, scrappy crops at Family Church? Remember how we walked those nine laps for the Twilight Walk at first in Clearwater and then the next year in Wichita? Remember how we were lucky enough to have artists from all over the world donate their work to this crazy idea called an art auction?

Remember how that $50,000 Kyrie Foundation Research Grant seemed so big, so far away in light of a tough economy and being a new, tiny, non-celebrity non-profit?



Guess what?





WE DID IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


You, me, your family, your friends, their families, their friends, schoolteachers, farmers, stylists, attorneys, designers, doctors, writers, realtors, construction workers, moms, dads, aunts, uncles, grandpas, grandmas, brothers, sisters, young people, not so young people, this person, that person, people you knew, people you got to know, people you didn't even know you knew! WE ALL MADE THE FIRST-EVER KYRIE FOUNDATION RESEARCH GRANT TOGETHER!

This means that January 22, 2010, we'll be traveling to Asheville, North Carolina to meet with the wonderful people at the PBTF. From there, they'll help us decide where this money will do the most progressive good toward finding a real, viable cure. Something REAL. Not something that just looks good, sounds good or simply evaporates. This money has to work just as hard if not harder than we did to create it.

So we have much to celebrate today, don't we?! Thank you. THANK YOU. Thank you for making this happen. Know that, indeed and sincerely, you have made the world a better place not just in theory but in truth.