Tuesday, May 16, 2006

I’m gonna run for Rae! Can you help?

Rae is twenty years old. She is intelligent, funny, dynamic, and loves to learn. She loves movies and has a memory like a steel trap. She writes poetry and short stories and loves to sing. Like any twenty year old, she is full of hopes and dreams for the future. This June she will attend her high school graduation ceremony.

Rae has cerebral palsy and dystonia – conditions which affect her muscles, negating their function. She uses a wheelchair and requires 24-hour care, needing 100% assistance with eating, grooming, bathing, schoolwork, and medications. Rae’s mental faculties are perfect. In mind and spirit she is like any twenty year old – it is only her body that does not respond to her. In addition to her physical care, her dad devotes hours to facilitating her other needs. He is her hands; she dictates projects or homework answers while he types for her. Rae is very particular and knows her own mind - the work is all Rae’s. As well, despite their many challenges, together he and Rae take in movies and plays, go to the park, visit family, and a million other things. Their time together is always filled with laughter and fun.

Once every six weeks, Rae spends one week at the Ottawa Rotary Home. The Rotary Home provides respite care to families of Eastern Ontario who have a child with a physical disability. The Rotary Home is a bright, spacious bungalow with 11 beds, specially trained staff and nursing care, and special activities that make the time special for the children while their parents get a break. The week provides her parents with a well-deserved rest from her constant care, while giving Rae a much-loved chance to socialize with her peers and get a taste of independence from mom and dad.

Says the Rotary Home web site:

Caring for a dependent family member can be a rewarding, life-enriching experience. It can also, at times, be tedious, exhausting, and stressful. One way caregivers, people with the every-day responsibility of caring for a dependent individual, can decrease the exhaustion and stress is to ensure periods of time away from their care-giving responsibilities.

I have twice visited Rae at the Rotary Home during her stay and was incredibly impressed. The staff are loving, kind, skilled, and committed. They love the kids and provide such an excellent level of care – medical, physical, and emotional. Rae loves her time there and gushed about the things she had done during her stay. The rooms are bright and pretty and the kids were happy and settled. I was very inspired by my visit and it made me more committed to trying to help. Because I have also seen, and been inspired by, the unending patience, devotion, time, energy, and love that Rae’s parents pour into their daughter, I wanted to help them raise money for the Rotary Home.

On June 5th, Rae’s dad, Winston, will be playing in a Golf-a-Thon to raise funds for the Rotary Home. I wanted to help - I donated, but I suck at golf, so on Saturday, May 27th, I will be running in the National Capital Race Weekend’s 5 K Run to raise funds for the Rotary Home. The dream of the Rotary Home Foundation fundraising events is to raise funds to build a new, larger home, which will also include new respite care for individuals over 21 years with physical disabilities.

If you would like to make a pledge and help me support this amazing place, please let me know by email, and then visit http://www.orhfoundation.ca/foundation/donations.php

and click on Online Donation Center to make a donation and pledge me in my race.

The mailing address can also be found there if you’d rather mail your cheque, or email me and I can pass on cheques made out to the Ottawa Rotary Home Foundation or cash. Please mention my name and the Ottawa Race Weekend 5K Run in the comments section.

Email me: kdmacken AT yahoo DOT com

Please let me know if you make a pledge, so that I can thank you, and so that I can see the tally towards our fundraising goal!

Thank you so much. I thank you for helping me make a tiny difference.

Lots of love, Kim
xoxo

For pics of the ORH and info: http://www.rotaryhome.on.ca

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