Following up on my Relay for Life fundraising appeal…
Last year, our team goal was $2,000, and we raised around $4,100. This year, our goal was $3,000, and we raised around $5,100. We beat our total by over a thousand dollars; and the members of the Writers of the Future forum contributed $562.38 toward that goal. We lost our coordinating judge, K.D. Wentworth, to cancer this year; and in her memory and in memory and support of others in our lives, we decided to contribute to the fight against cancer. I promised luminaria for each donation. Here are pictures from Relay.
Stewart dedicated a luminaria to his mother-in-law, Angelica Lau Smith.
I dedicated this to my sister and team co-captain, Anita Buckowing (her other captain was Amy Fowler)…
…and Dawn also made a generous donation in honor of Anita.
This one was in honor of my sister-in-law, Claire Shoemaker. Another one in honor of my other sister-in-law, Laura Shoemaker, caught fire before I could get a picture. Candles in paper bags… It’s a wonder that only two burned up all night!
Jennifer a.k.a. Greenroom dedicated one to K.D.
As did Tina.
And Steve.
And Austin.
And Alistair.
And Jeanette.
And Kary.
Helen asked for a joint memorial: K.D. and E.J.
Amanda asked for another joint memorial for K.D. and for Joseph Zilvinskis.
Melanie asked for a dedication to K.D., and asked for one of my stick figures for the picture. Since K.D. loved wild horses, I thought this one was appropriate.
Dustin asked for this picture in K.D.’s memory.
Marina asked for this in memory of her mentor, Kathleen Brown.
I dedicated this in support of my mom, diagnosed with colon cancer back in May. It’s Rodin’s Kiss. She had a small scale reproduction of this a long time ago.
I dedicated this to my friend, former coworker, and fellow author Steve Poling. Anyone with an interest in the Sherlock Holmes canon should check out The Aristotelian.
Rebecca dedicated this to the memory of her grandmother, Vera Bjork.
And then I have a few random photos from the event. This is a photo of our booth:
The guy in yellow is my brother-in-law, Mark Buckowing (but everybody calls him “Buck”). Also one of my best friends for – yeesh, 34 years now! Buck reads more books than any three other people I know (unless those three are his wife and kids). I’m posting here largely because of him: when he read the opening chapter of my novel in progress, he said, “I think you should wrap that up and send it out as a short story.” So I did, and the rest is history. Oh, and that chapter? It got me to the ISDC, where I had lunch with Buzz Aldrin. So blame him for my presence here.
Anita made and sold these clay unicorns, part of her Kritters Against Cancer series.
And also these dinosaurs.
And here you can see more unicorns and dinosaurs.
It was a great day. We celebrated. We raised a lot of money. We fought back. And we did it with a lot of help from you. Thank you!