HEARTS 4 HAITI

About a week ago, I received a request from a dear friend in Canada. She wondered if I could help out with a fundraiser her daughter Cadence was hoping to do in her school. Cadence is a Valentine's baby who has a history of using her charmed birthday for good, so when she asked me to create a logo for her latest charitable venture, I jumped into action. Cadence's beautiful idea was to sell hearts in her middle school, rather than the usual candy grams and carnations, for Valentine's Day and donate all of the money to the Red Cross to assist the people in Haiti. A genius idea, don't you think? She called it Hearts for Haiti and with that, the heart above was born.

As I played around with the design of the heart, my 11 yr. old son (you know him as Pumpkin) was looking over my shoulder. You should know that he suggested using the "4" rather than "for" in the design to make it cooler (these are middle schoolers you know!). When I told him what it was all about, he thought he may like to do the same in his school. So as Cadence reviewed the proofs and approved the final design, Pumpkin got busy writing a proposal of his own to submit to his principal. Here is that proposal:

Hearts 4 Haiti Charity Fundraiser Proposal

Dear Mrs. XXXXXX:

I would like to propose a fundraiser for the people of Haiti who have been affected by the Earthquake. My mother was asked by a middle school girl in Canada to design a logo for a Hearts 4 Haiti fundraiser that she wanted to do in her school. When I heard about it, I thought it was a good idea and decided to see if we could do it at XXXXXXX School too.

The idea behind Hearts 4 Haiti is very simple. In the weeks before Valentine’s day, students, teachers and anyone can buy a Heart for $1 (see attached). They can sign their own name on it or buy it for someone else and we could hang the hearts in the school. I think a good place for the hearts to be hung could be the cafeteria, but they can really be hung anywhere. Then we can donate the money to the Red Cross to help the Haitian people with food, clothes, clean water, medical supplies, toys for the children, etc.

The benefits of having this fundraiser at XXXXXXX would be:

1. We would help the Haitians in their time of need.

2. It would bring awareness to the problems that the earthquake created in Haiti.

3. The school would look nice and be decorated for Valentine’s Day.

I would be happy to sell the hearts at lunchtime and find other students who would like to help. My mother also said she would help me organize and maybe a teacher would volunteer to help too.

Thank you for considering this idea.

XXXXXXXX XXXXX, Room XX

I am so pleased to report that Pumpkin's proposal was approved by his principal and Cadence's project is catching on like crazy with Hearts 4 Haiti being sold in not only her school, but many other schools (and other venues!) in her area.

If you would like to start a Hearts 4 Haiti fundraiser in your community, we will be happy to provide downloadable files to get started. Simply comment here with contact information or go to Hearts 4 Haiti's Facebook fan page and let us know you're interested!

Thank you Cadence for a wonderful idea and for inspiring my own son to take action on behalf of the people of Haiti. You are an amazing girl!

And if that's not inspiration enough, I've had this on replay all week long.