Great Strides SLC

Yesterday was the culmination of months of hard work.  Ben's Brigade started out as a little idea hatched by the AVID students at Sherman E. Burroughs High School in Ridgecrest, CA.  The students have been involved in fundraising for the Great Strides walk in Ridgecrest for a couple of years now, but this year they worked extra hard.  The school newspaper wrote an article about Ben, and I was invited to several classes to talk about what CF is and how it affects our daily lives.  This year the Ridgecrest walk had more people than ever before--and more high school students than ever before!  Together our little school raised almost $2,000 for the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation!

It was a bitter cold December morning for the Ridgecrest walk, and the wind (we don't way that word in Ridgecrest) was blowing hard, but there were still walkers all over the track.  They were bundled up in winter gear, but they were smiling and talking and waving at each other as they went.  It was a beautiful thing to see.

And that was just the beginning.

In Pensacola some dear friends of ours (both carriers of a CF-causing gene but whose son is CF-free) recruited some of their acquaintances to walk there for Ben's Brigade as well.  In Texas and in Washington, friends and family who couldn't join us in Salt Lake found somewhere to walk so they could show their solidarity.

And yesterday Ben's Brigade had over one hundred supporters walking with us through the beautiful buildings of downtown Salt Lake City.  Almost all of them were wearing their Ben's Brigade shirts and hoodies, designed by the incredible Nathan Galli and sold as part of our fundraising effort.  It was a beautiful day.  The sun was shining, the sky was blue, and the temperature was perfect (maybe even a little warm for all those hoodies!).  At the end of the walk, we took a group picture, and I presented the Ben's Brigade knife, lovingly and beautifully crafted by our dear friend Jared Williams, to my husband. The auction for the knife had been tense for a while, as both our fathers were (anonymously) battling to make sure it stayed in the family--and I was the only one who knew--but it was all worth it when I read my dad's letter to Smokey about why he was so determined to pass the knife from grandfather to father and, eventually, to son.

That night we held a thank you barbecue in Smokey's parents' backyard.  I have been trying to finish this post for several months, actually, because I don't feel confident that I can do justice to my feelings of love and gratitude.  Being surrounded by our friends and family members the morning of the walk was an amazing feeling, but being surrounded by them again that night as we relaxed after a long, hot day, was even better.  I don't have the words, and I don't want to cheapen the experience by trying to verbalize it.

At the end of the day, Ben's Brigade raised just over $10,000 for the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation, which puts 90 cents of every dollar raised back into research for a cure.  We are pretty proud of our hard work, and we are *very* proud of our supporters.  Thank you to every single one of you who shared a Facebook post, made a donation of time or money, bought a shirt, walked with us, or otherwise showed your support.  We have been truly overwhelmed, and we are truly blessed to know each and every one of you.