July 26, 2019
While my signature sessions are always available, a few times a year I offer special petite sessions or mini session events that double as fundraising events for non-profit organizations that are near and dear to my heart. This past April I spent much of the month preparing for May and a month of petite sessions that both celebrated Motherhood and raised money for The CURED Foundation. I enjoyed these sessions so much that I extended them into the month of June, which means that I’m only now recapping everything in July.
Mother’s Day is of course the second Sunday in May, but this year instead of just focusing on one day, I really wanted to celebrate moms all month long. I worked together with other local small businesses owned or co-owned by moms to put together swag bags of goodies that were specifically filled with goodies for the moms and not their kids. Though I’m pretty some mamas may have shared the Cookie Mama cookies with their kiddos. In addition to the cookies, the swag bags also contained SHE bath bombs from Ology Essentials, a discount for a massage and hand cream from Susan Richter LMT, precious flour sack towels from S3 creations, and a gorgeous birds nest necklace from Three Bitty Birds.
May isn’t just for celebrating mamas though. May also happens to be rare disease awareness month, and the third week of May is Eosinophilic Disease Awareness Week. The CURED Foundation works tirelessly to raise money for research to find both treatments and a a cure for eosinophilic diseases and was founded and is still run by a mom whose daughter received the diagnosis in 2003. However, CURED is not solely focused on fundraising, the foundation also offers incredible support to families like mine after receiving the same diagnosis.
We have been so blessed by the work that CURED has done since my daughter Charlotte was diagnosed with eosinophilic esophagitis in August of 2015. It was a diagnosis that at the time gave us more questions than answers, and we would spend the next three years navigating the ups and downs of this disease before finally achieving a new normal that means she can’t eat certain foods but remains in remission without having to use medication. I cannot place a value on the support we received from the CURED Foundation and the community of other CURED families, and I was filled with joy to be able to give back with this event.
Instead of paying me for the 30 minute petite session, each family that booked one of these petite sessions donated directly to The CURED Foundation, and I am so excited to announce that in this inaugural year of the Celebrating Motherhood event, we were able to raise over $1100 for The CURED Foundation and ongoing research into the treatment and cure of eosinophilic diseases. In addition to the 30 minute petite session and as a thank you for participating, each mom received a custom portrait locket that we designed together during an in-person ordering session and had the opportunity to order additional fine art portraits and gifts from the session.
Heading into May and this event I was excited, but I could never have predicted how much I would love this month of celebrating Motherhood. I especially enjoyed the families that brought their grandmothers too, so we had the opportunity to celebrate motherhood at every stage. Every single session brought me joy, and I hope and pray that it brought joy to each one of the families who participated as well.
I’m already at work on planning the next and last fundraising portrait event for 2019. This next one will be just a day or two of Christmas themed mini-sessions, so spaces will be very limited. Make sure to scroll down to the bottom and subscribe to my email list to be the first to find out about the Christmas event, Celebrating Motherhood 2020, as well as other future events and special opportunities.
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