So much thanks for your votes!

We're so proud of all of you! So humbled to know that your support put The Kyrie Foundation in the top 5 when other bigger and more tenured organizations couldn't quite muster what you all did. People organizing mass texts at Halloween parties, organizing all-school assemblies, passing out flyers, sending daily e-mails, organizing parade floats, posting all over Facebook, asking workgroups and companies to send out e-mails and so many more phenomenal ideas—all of which catapulted us to the #4 position among over 1,100 national ideas. We are still stunned at the incredible outpouring of support—support that extended beyond our imagination to reach families who understand all too well the importance of our work to raise research funds that will someday cure children's brain cancer.

Even though. we defended #4 and finished near the top two, we did fall short by a mere two spots to be awarded the $250K grant for the month of October. Looking back, know that we did everything we could think of, everything for which we could get approval, to get all the support we could. Oh, the journey. Oh, the enlightenment when you're working with others. It was a tough decision, but we've decided to take a breather from the Pepsi competition, even though Pepsi rolls over those ideas that make it into the top 100. However ... we are planning to re-enter the competition in a couple of months with other organizations who have already contacted us about partnering them in the future. This means keep thinking, keep imagining ways to promote the vote because a few months will pass quickly, and you'll be receiving these e-mails again!

The strangest thing about this kind of competition is that it's as much about what isn't done as what is. What we don't do makes just as much of an impact as what we decide to do. It's all about the little decisions, isn't it? How we decide to spend 60 seconds, if we decide to take action, if we decide to ask other to vote, if we decide to text a vote instead of send an LOL text, if we decide to just DO something instead of yield to apathy. That's what makes all the difference in making the world better, in making your life meaningful.

For us, it was never about the money. It was always about the children. That's why we continue to do what we do in spite of the million different obstacles we face to procure donations, to find volunteers and to get others to care about cancer in little brains. We're not going to stop, and we hope you don't either.

p.s.
Don't forget to join us for Metamorphosis 2010, our third-annual art+gift auction in Kansas City!

p.p.s.
Our friends at 3 Ring Ranch in Hawaii are competing again this month and could use each and every vote.