Earlier this year, Kelly asked me if she could make Different Heroes a beneficiary of the funds she planned to raise at her upcoming fund raising event, Purses with a Purpose.

​Only a few months prior, her husband Jon fundraised for Different Heroes at his Charlotte Food Fight event in Matthews, North Carolina. (Super fun event by the way!)

​​This sweet family has raised $1700 with food and gently used purses!!!

To put that into perspective, they just made it possible for Different Heroes to cover the camp fees for up to THIRTY FOUR campers to attand one of our favorite limb difference camps or for us to make and mail over 30 assistive hand/arm devices for families in need of a free prosthetic style device!!

My neighbors are... DIFFERENT HEROES!!!

Please share your fundraising ideas with us in the comments... we would also love to hear what YOU are doing to help the limb difference community:)

​I spent SEVERAL hours on the phone talking with some amazing families who have either recently adopted a child with a limb difference or are in the process of doing so.

I will back up a bit to say that, I've been gathering research on limb differerent adoptions to bettter understand the process, the costs, and the struggles familes sometimes face during the process since we hope to soon be able to help with these situations.

Anyway, I had a few questions to ask each of these familes, who have been through/are going through the process now. During the interviews, each of them had questions for me as well. I got to help four families today just by being able to listen to their fears and providing some information to them. Each of the families thought it was so cool that I actually got to give birth to my ABS (Amniotic Band Syndrome) baby. I've never really thought of it as "cool". In fact, I struggled BAD with that at first and still have days when I am hard on myself for having those feelings (even though I know it wasnt caused by anything I did). These familes had questions about how it felt to feel him move with the bands, if I knew about it, could I feel if he was in pain, did he have to have extra care at birth, what the ultrasounds were like, questions about surgeries and therapies, camps, casts, what causes it, what the bands were like at birth, and all sorts of other things.

I was able to help four families today BECAUSE I have had the privilege of giving birth to an ABS baby. I couldn't have said that 5 years ago.

My goals for Different Heroes, at times, feel unreachable... because, I do have HUGE goals in mind for this nonprofit and I set veey high standards for myself and everything I do. But, the important thing right now that I have to remember is not so much the number of dollars raised or the amount of people we help (although that is important as well)... it's the quality of the help, the love we show, the lives we change for the better. I want to help everyone.

Every. Single. Limb. Different. Family.

But until we, as a nonprofit, can do that... I will cherish these conversations that change lives. To say I have found my passion in helping other families "learn the limb difference ropes" would be an understatement.

​#cuphalffull #itsthelittlethings #DifferentHeroes ❤