Fab-U-Wish™: A Fabulous New Charity

Tonight on E!News, Giuliana Rancic announced an amazing new charity called Fab-U-Wish™.  As a breast cancer survivor, Rancic realized that getting dolled up for work while undergoing treatment was a special kind of therapy that made her feel good about herself.

Rancic, along with Bright Pink, wants to share that same brightness with other young breast and ovarian cancer survivors, and aims to play fairy godmother to women in need of a little refuge. (Bright Pink is the only national non-profit organization that focuses on the  prevention and early detection of breast and ovarian cancer in young women while still providing support for high-risk individuals.)

Fab-U-Wish wants to make dreams come true for women 45 and younger undergoing treatment for ovarian or breast cancer.  There is an opportunity to nominate someone you know, or if you are undergoing treatment yourself, you can submit yourself directly on the website.

Fab-U-Wish is teaming up with Rancic's E! Network to really try and make a little bit of fabulous go a long way.  As Rancic mentioned, a red carpet experience or a lunch with Bradley Cooper are all in the realm of possibility.  Indulgent? Perhaps.  But as she points out, indulging in the things that made her look and feel good about herself, helped her remain her outgoing, optimistic, and confident self, and not solely focused on her breast cancer.

Kudos to Giuliana Rancic for using her celebrity status to spread awareness to young women about breast and ovarian cancers and for helping those that are going through it. 

Posted by Leslie

OC Marathon Winner Supports Team Jake

As you may have noticed in my last post, my husband wore a yellow/orange "Team Jake" shirt during his half marathon run. What you probably don't know is what Team Jake is all about.

Team Jake is a tribute to Jake Ryan Lee Robert who passed away five years ago unexpectedly, the day after his father, Steven, completed his first marathon (which happened to be the Orange County Marathon). Every year since then, his family and friends have used the Orange County Marathon to celebrate that their entire family was together for his last day. Team Jake supports United Cerebral Palsy of Orange County in collaboration with the OM Foundation to provide therapy and childcare services to special needs kids all over Orange County, and offer quality support for their families.

Interestingly enough, the winner of the OC Marathon was a member of Team Jake.

Check out this article in the OC Register to find out why the OC Marathon winner, a native Nigerian, joined Team Jake the day before the race.

It's never too early or too late to make a difference in a person's life. Click here to donate to Team Jake.

Box Tops DO Make a Difference

It's official - I am "the crazy Box Top lady." Or at least that is what one mom called me yesterday at my son's school. But you know what? I am okay with it. If there is one thing I love, it is FREE MONEY!

Do you realize how much free money is out there for education with those Box Tops on General Mills cereal boxes, Betty Crocker cake mixes and Ziploc bags (just to name a few)? It all adds up...fast. So even if you don't have a child in school, cut out your Box Tops and give them to your local school, a friend with school-age kids, or if you want, send them to me! I would be glad to donate them to my son's school. You can ask any school, and no amount of money would probably ever be enough. And every little bit helps.

Having said that, there are children in Africa who don't have running water or heat, but Box Tops for Education is giving them hope for a better life by donating laptops if you watch the video above. So please do so. It only takes one minute out of your time and lots of money out of a company's pocket to make the lives of children better.

With One Click, One Dollar Goes to Toys for Tots

The holidays are coming to a close, and hopefully the season was very merry for you. But for some kids, Santa doesn’t make a stop at their house. Which is where Toys for Tots comes in – helping provide thousands of toys for families in need. It’s really a wonderful program.

To help this great cause, CouponMountain.com (an online coupon code site) has pledged to give up to $50,000. But it’s up to you how much Toys for Tots will get. Because they’re going to give $1 for every Facebook Fan they have on Dec. 31.

So please – take a minute to log on and “Like” CouponMountain. Then pass it on.

How You Can Give $1 to Toys for Tots:
· Go to: www.Facebook.com/CouponMountain
· Select “Like”
· CouponMountain will donate $1
· Spread the word to your friends

Walk 4 Water - What a Success

This morning, we woke up and took the kids for a 4-mile walk at the beach. Well, that's not all we did.

This morning we participated in the Walk 4 Water event I had mentioned a couple of weeks ago supporting TheSamburuProject.org. So many people and families turned out to help the people in Kenya to get clean drinking water - without having to walk all day to get it.

Just before we began our walk, the founder of TheSamburuProject.org, Kristen Kosinski, announced to everyone that they had just completed their 25th well...ensuring that 25,000 people would now have clean drinking water. A-mazing!

While I had lots of fun on the walk and the mingling before and after the walk, I was so excited to see how easy it is to impact another person's life in a positive way. Sometimes the idea of volunteering or participating in a charity event can be daunting because you don't know what you want to do and aren't sure how to do it.

After participating in this event, I am reminded that it isn't that hard to participate and it can be a lot of fun when you have friends and family with you. I would like to thank my good friend, Kim Blum, for helping organize such a great event, and most importantly, getting me involved in helping make a life-altering change for thousands of people.

If you would like to find out more information about The Samburu Project or would like to donate, please visit TheSamburuProject.org.

Image from TheSamburuProject.org