Call for People Power!

Long time no post, eh? Oh, how I’ve missed you! It’s been a stretch of restorative work and a lot of planning for the approaching five-year anniversary of the Kyrie Foundation! Can you believe it? Me neither.

With all of this evaluation, recovery and planning, we are putting the call out for volunteers—big time. The foundation has been so blessed by you—everyone who support the cause in big ways and small. You are the reason we’re still here, and like we always said, you are the Kyrie Foundation. That said, all that support has generated tremendous growth, loads of ideas and plenty of hope for future ways to help children and families.

Problem is, we have more ideas than we have people to make the ideas happen! We need a few of you join in on the core planning and execution of all those great ideas. We’re still just a small group of friends trying to make a difference, and we’re looking for people who care about saving children’s brains from cancer, who don’t mind sharing their time and ideas, and who can roll with fundraising events. If that sounds like you, please, please, please let our dear Amy Nelson know, amy@kyriefoundation.org.

Now is the time, friends. We have a couple super-great co-chairpersons for the krop in Wichita, but they can always use set-up/tear-down volunteers and anyone willing to help solicit donations. Our 2011 auction chairperson has agreed to give it another year—woo-hoo!—but again she’d love your help to gather quality art, gifts , media exposure and sponsorships.

For the walk, we’ve always pulled together as a team to make it happen. Last year we had absolutely STELLAR volunteers join the fold, and we certainly LOVE to have even more to accommodate the attendance growth that we keep experiencing—another woo-hoo! We need help securing sponsors, promoting through local media, helping with registration, procuring silent auction items and more!

Finally, if you want to be in on the ground floor of this grassroots cause, if you want to help shape the future of this organization, if you want to help guide this group, if you have insight, skill or contacts that you think could further the cause, we’ve got a spot for you.

We’ve always said that this organization in not our own. It is a divine assignment and we are making a real contribution to the world thanks to a wing and a prayer. ;)

In any case, you’ll want to stay tuned for some cool things happening this year!!

Important Dates to Know:

Saturday, March 31—5^th Annual Kyrie Krop, Wichita, KS (More info coming ASAP!)

Tentative Saturday, September 15—5^th Annual Twilight Walk, Wichita, KS

Tentative Saturday, November 10—5^th Annual Art+Gift Auction, Kansas City, MO

A message from Frosty!

Happy Holidays!

Frosty & Elf Rita are busy preparing for their
Annual Kyrie Christmas Trip to Wesley Hospital
Pediatric & PICU Floor...to delivery bags FULL of
goodies to the kiddos who are stuck in the hospital
over Christmas weekend.

They will be frolicking down the hallways on
Friday, December 23 with Jordan, Lacie, and
some good-deed-doer volunteers!!

Luckily this year, there is
an overabundance of toys for each child.

However, we are short on cash donations,
which are used to purchase:

Teen Items
McDonalds Gift Cards
Spangles Gift Cards
Quik-Trip Gas Cards
Last minute age/gender-appropriate items

If anyone is interested in donating,
please mail your contribution to:

Susan Jae Eckel
"Frosty"
3738 S. Dugan
Wichita, KS 67215

We need ALL donations
no later than: 12/19/2011

Thank you so much for your support!
It is so-very-appreciated!!

Snowflakes & Hugs,
"Frosty"

Heart of America Men's Chorus Concert Benefitting The Annual Kyrie Foundation Hospital Trip

Don't Forget!!!

This weekend, treat yourself to some great signing from some great guys, all while helping benefit the annual hospital trip by Frosty, Elf Rita and The Kyrie Foundation. Bring a toy and/or book with you and it will be delivered to a child on our annual hospital trip and mean more to someone than you can ever imagine.

Please note the Sunday time of 4:30pm!

Kids under 12 are free with an adult paid admission

$18 tickets available at the door or by calling 708.4837 or

by stopping by Creative Awards, 2801 E Central

during business hours

De Mattias Fine Arts Center
Newman University - Wichita, KS

This WEEKEND!!

7:00 p.m. SATURDAY NIGHT, 12/3
4:30 p.m. SUNDAY AFTERNOON, 12/4

The big toy drive Christmas concert with Heart of America Men's Choir! WOO-HOOO!!! And if you tell the ticket peoplet that your buying your ticket in support of the Kyrie Foundation, they'll donate $3 for each of those people--back to the Kyrie Foundation!

There are already two 8' tables set up outside the concert hall at Newman University's De Mattias Fine Arts Center to collect the toys.

If you haven't been to a performance there, you'll find it to be a terrific venue. Deanne Zogleman, the choral director and head of the music department, is the Guest Conductor and is hosting this HOAMC concert in her terrific facility: Newman University's De Mattias Fine Arts Center.

The perfect way to put yourself in the holiday mood!!

Fishing for a Cure SNEAK PEEK!

T-Minus One Week

That's right!  We are one week away from the 2011 Kyrie Foundation Art & Gift Auction where we will be 'Fishing for a Cure'.  Join us at Studio 2131 in the Crossroads District of Kansas City on Saturday night, November 12 for an evening filled with live music, great food & drink and some of the best silent and live auction items around.  The best thing is that you can enjoy all of this while joining in the fight against pediatric brain cancer.  We would love to see you there.

Click here to purchase advance tickets to the 2011 Kyrie Foundation Art & Gift Auction

To whet your whistle as you Fish for a Cure!

So excited to have a host of fabulous artists who have donated pieces to the big event! Take a peek at a couple of our artist and some of their style ...

Aardark on the Sea

Aardvark is the brainchild of Lesley and Pea, artist and designer, of St.Leonards on Sea: a veritable Bohemia and creative epicentre on the South Coast.

We delight in the particular and the vernacular: handmade signs, typography, village halls, fruit cake, tweed overcoats and twice-fried chips. Other inspirations include Edwardian picaresques, English Modernism and cheesy tunes of yesteryear. We champion the handmade and homemade. The broadsides are made with traditional wood and metal type and are printed on a vintage Heidelberg press in Rye.

Our linocuts are lovingly carved and printed in our ramshackle studio using only FSC certified/recycled papers and environmentally friendly inks.

Rita Blitt

Painter/sculptor Rita Blitt celebrates her love of nature, music, and dance in drawings, paintings, film and sculpture. She has installed over 45 monumental sculptures up to 60 feet in height, had 74 solo exhibitions and participated in many group shows. Her works have been shown and installed in Australia, France, Germany, Israel, Italy (including an award in the Florence Biennale), Japan, Singapore, Taiwan and the United States. Rabbi Brad Hirschfield recently wrote, Blitt's work "affirms life and inspires joy". Commenting on Blitt's work in a 2003 NYC exhibition David Cleveland reviewer and novelist wrote, "Translating intimate gesture of line…Blitt has created sculptures which invoke her signature sensuous curves and ethereal harmonies of form, mirroring in compelling ways the human figure in motion."

Jeremy Collins

Whether your journey is from east to west, or from ground to summit, don't miss the path from heart to head. Between these two destinations we find our voice.

Lorrie Boydston

As a native of Suburban Kansas City, I am a product of suburbia and continue to live and raise my own family on the edge of civilization.  Amongst the fabricated, redundant landscape I find myself capturing what I see as little glimpses of life or a moment of redemption in an otherwise mundane and whitewashed environment.  My work explores the dichotomy of suburban life as it relates to our personal ideas of what is private and public.  My use of both photography and painting echoes the conceptual nature of the suburban subject matter and speaks of the tension between illusion and reality.  

Daniel Swartz

I have a simple philosophy when it comes to illustration:  Do something INCREDIBLE.

There are only so many hours in the day, years in a life…why waste them on something I’m not proud of?  I want every piece I do to be something incredible in three ways: First that the piece would clearly stand out to the public as something different and something great; Second that the creative process between myself and the client would lead us to an awesome solution, to excel in the collaborative component of illustration; and Third that I could push myself conceptually and technically and won’t settle for trite solutions.

Maura Cluthe

I integrate text + photography + drawing + painting with all sorts of stuff. I collect postcards, old photographs, and remnants off the street; fragments from other people's lives that live on within my paintings.

More artist peeks to come!!!