On June 24th, more than 200 friends of Chelsea's Hope gathered at the gorgeous Chateau St. Jean winery for an "Evening of Miracles". Our goal for the evening was to raise funds and awareness for Lafora, a fatal, yet, underfunded disease.
Thanks to the generosity of Toyota Racing, with the assistance of Saatchi LA, we were all treated not only to an evening of miracles, but also to an evening of magic.
We owe so much to Tim Blankenship, who, using Chelsea's Hope as his inspiration designed and submitted a virtual racecar to the Toyota Sponsafier contest. Little did we know how life changing this would be for our foundation and for our Lafora families.
Toyota Sponsafier III received over 45,000 entries, and with the help and support of people all over the world, Tim's "Chelsea's Hope" entry was voted into the top 10!
Another tense round of voting soon followed, and again, the support we received from friends, and even total strangers, was unprecedented.
Imagine our excitement when we found out that Tim's entry won: the idea of seeing a car built with our logo on it was thrilling, especially knowing it would be displayed at the NASCAR All-Star Race in Charlotte, NC. The idea that millions of people would see our name and hear our stories was truly life changing - particularly for a small foundation such as Chelsea's Hope.
After the All-Star race, we approached Toyota and asked if they would consider bringing "our" car out to Infineon racetrack in Sonoma in June. Our hope was that we would be able to expose those people attending the race to Chelsea's Hope when they visited our car on display.
But Toyota Racing went one step further...not only did they agree to bring a car out, but they also offered to host a benefit to support Lafora research and Chelsea's Hope!
With only a mere three weeks to plan a spectacular event, Toyota Racing was beyond amazing. Along with the help and support from their advertising agency, Saatchi LA, they chose to host the event at the beautiful and idyllic Chateau St. Jean Winery.
Toyota Racing was prepared to help us in every possible way so that we could raise the necessary funds for the very promising research being conducted by Dr. Berge Minassian. Because of their selflessness, dedication and unflinching support, we are very close to meeting our goal.
We wish we could thank every person and business that supported us with generous donations and kindness, but we think we would lose your attention prior to completing the list! Suffice it to say, that despite our economy, people came through and supported us in so many ways. It was a humbling experience.
Toyota Racing told us prior to the event that they were going to donate a car lease for us to use in an opportunity drawing, in the middle of the auction, they decided to throw in a second car!
For the NASCAR lovers, we had a table filled with coveted NASCAR items. We had IPADS and cameras, magnums of wine and trips and we had people stepping up from all over the country to help us make our evening a success.
The wines were world class, the food was wonderful and the setting couldn't have been more magnificent.
NASCAR super-stars Kyle Busch and Joey Logano joined us at our "Evening of Miracles". In addition, William Fichtner - a fantastic actor and an even better human being, lent his time to our Evening of Miracles by mingling with the crowd and offering up an amazing opportunity when his helmet was auctioned.
Needless to say, their star power helped us raise much needed research money and we are so grateful to them for their time and generosity.
We wish that we had the words to express the absolute beauty of the evening. In a perfect world, we would have had ample time to plan an event of this magnitude, but we had less than a month to make miracles happen. It will take a combination of miracles and science to help us save our children, so it seems only fitting that miracles, generosity and tenacity came together to produce such an incredible and magical evening.
The money raised will be used to support Dr. Minassian's research - research that opens up the door to hope for the families whose children are living with Lafora.
We, at Chelsea's Hope, thank you all for lending us your time, energy, enthusiasm and generosity.
As for Toyota Racing - there really are no words to express our gratitude. We know how rare it is to be lent a helping hand by a multi-national company. We are thrilled to call Toyota Racing a friend of Chelsea's Hope and a major benefactor to the future of Lafora Research. We know that all of our children and their families share in our appreciation. |
