Tag Archive for: 5K/10K for Kids Cancer

NEW! ‘Kids Finding Cures’ Fundraising Contest

Photo Credit: Beth Wade Photography

The other day we were asked by a child if they raised money for ISF – could they get something fun in exchange?  A contest of sorts.. but not really.  It’s never a contest when we are fighting for a cure… BUT we are all about kids having some fun with it, so why not.  We started brainstorming and kids love our raffle at the 5K/10K FOR KIDS CANCER and why shouldn’t they?  Its AMAZING!

In honor of our 10th year anniversary of the race, we are bringing it all back to the spirit of Isabella.  Isabella was out there pounding the streets, hosting lemonade stands, asking friends and family for money… not for her, but her friends who were fighting cancer.  ISF was never about HER in her mind because she just wanted to do something to help others in need.

And just because they are young, doesn’t mean they can’t make a difference!  Lemonade stands, bake sales… get those creative ideas rolling!

INTRODUCING OUR KIDS FUNDRAISING PROGRAM!  Here is how it will work…

  • For every $250.00 that a child raises through his/her own creative way, they will receive 5 raffle tickets to the 10th Annual 5K/10K for Kids Cancer
  • The TOP 3 FUNDRAISERS will receive Amazon Cards
  • 100% of their funds raised will go toward Levine Children’s Hospital and the MIBG Treatment Room that ISF has committed to funding

START FUNDRAISING TODAY

Please tag Isabella Santos Foundation on social media… we can’t wait to see and share what your kids come up with!  #kidsmakingadifference

2nd Annual ISF Kids T-Shirt Design Contest

2016 Design Winner

Back again!  The ISF youth t-shirt designs we received last year were so cute… we have to do it again.  Kids ages 5-12 years old are invited to submit an original logo design for the Isabella Santos Foundation 5K/10K race event.  The winning logo design will be feature on t-shirts given to all YOUTH participants at the ISF 5k/10K event.  Thank you Charlotte Eye Ear Nose & Throat Associates, P.A. for sponsoring the ISF Kids T-Shirt Design contest for a second year!

This year we were super excited to have our favorite art studio, Small Hands Big Art, host a T-Shirt Design Workshop last week to kick off the contest.  We were also super excited that it filled up immediately.  Many creative and cute designs came to life and now we are opening the contest up for emailed entries.  This being our 10th Anniversary, we are looking for a design that reflects that significance!  Parents- this is the perfect time to talk to your child about ISF, about kids fighting cancer and get them excited about participating in the 5K/10K/Fun Run event on September 30th!

The deadline for entries is Monday, August 28th.  Email scanned design to:  info@isabellasantosfoundation.org

Small Hands Big Art Design Workshop

DETAILS:

  • Ages 5-12
  • Design must be drawn by hand
  • Design must include one of the following elements:
    • ISF Girl
    • The number 10 (10th)
    • The World (earth)
  • Design must be drawn on a piece of plan white paper, 8 1/2 x 11
  • T-shits will be a shade of purple
  • Deadline for entries is Monday, August 28th.

 

LAST YEARS DESIGN SUBMISSIONS 

Why We Haven’t Touched It

Written by Erin Santos, Isabella’s Mommy & President of The Isabella Santos Foundation

Day 10
Why we haven’t touched it…

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She barely lived in it. It’s been vacant for 3 years now. I remember her helping paint the walls pink and purple stripes. The rollers were so big she could barely hold them up. She got her new white furniture with a side table, dresser and desk for all that homework that she had planned to do. Truth is, I can barely remember her sleeping in there. So many times she would end up in our bed due to sickness or if Stuart was traveling, not to mention all the nights in the hospital. If she slept in there one hundred nights I would be surprised.
But the room is all her. Her pajamas are still in the drawers, her dresses still hang in the closet and her shoes are still waiting to be worn. Her dresser is covered with pictures of her best friends, her family and “get well soon” cards from classmates. The bookshelves have her library books that I’m sure the Elementary school as decided not to ask for. Her desk is filled with drawings and notes that were never finished. There are beaded necklaces that we made in the hospital, seashells she collected, diaries with kittens on them and Taylor Swift CDs in every drawer you open. I have still not gone through it all because I’m always afraid of what I will find. Last year I found a Mother’s Day craft she made me at school just a month before she died that she never gave to me. That is when I just decided to close things up for awhile.


There are books out there for everything these days when it deals with children. “What to expect when you are expecting” was supposed to be the roadmap for pregnancy to follow. Where is the book on “What to expect when you aren’t expecting?” Where is the manual for parents on how to deal with things like this? I need a roadmap and here are some things I need to know…


1. What do I do with her clothes and when do I start to actually do something with them? Do I make her clothes into blankets and give them to people? Is that creepy?
2. What do I keep and what is junk? Do I keep everything that she ever wrote on? If I throw it away will I regret I did that?
3. How long do I keep this room going like this? Am I supposed to have a little girl’s twin bed in there forever?
4. If I make her room something else, what do I do with it? If I make it into another guest bedroom will people be wigged out sleeping in there? Feels even more disrespectful to make it into an office or something.
5. What do I do with her furniture? Is that another thing I will get rid of and then regret I got rid of it? I keep finding places on her furniture that she actually wrote her name on. Seriously?
6. Do I put her stuff in storage?
7. When do I do all of this? At what point is it okay to have her room still the same, and at what point does it become creepy? When will people start saying, “I think it’s time they did something with that room.” I definitely want to do something with it before that conversation starts happening.


All these counselors will tell you that this stuff should be done whenever you are ready. There is no timeframe that should occur. But there has got to be. There is definitely a line out there in the universe that you cross too soon or too late. It still feels too soon to me because every season I think I can tackle clothing and I just crumble. But, I know it all can’t stay like that forever. It eventually will need to be tackled, just not sure on the rules for this stuff.

-Isabella’s mommy


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Why I am Not a Nut Job

Written by Erin Santos, Isabella’s Mommy & President of The Isabella Santos Foundation

DAy 9Day 9
Why I’m not a nut job…

September comes around and I feel the urge to write. There is so much stuff out there written this month for Childhood Cancer Awareness month. Some of it applies to my situation, but some of it doesn’t. Some of it is weird. Hell, my writings are probably weird. But they are relevant to me because they are my life stories. However, they are not my every day life stories.

I get to log in and see all the great comments of Facebook when we push these blogs. Everyone is so positive and supportive on each of my posts. One common theme though seems to be worry about my mental state. I get it. I realize that I must sounds like a complete nut job in these posts. Truth is though; these posts represent about 5% of what is going on my brain. I just pull them out this month and talk about them openly with total strangers. Okay, maybe that is a little bit of nut job behavior.

Every day I am honestly just living my life. There are plenty of days that go by where I don’t think about the horrible movie I was in. I’m like most of you who think about work, or what the kids have going on today, or where I left those expensive pair of jeans I just bought, or which guy the Bachelorette is going to end up with. I’m able to walk by her room without thinking too much about either. Her room has been vacant now for 3 years, which is longer than she even lived in it. Sophia is growing out of the last remaining bit of her clothes, so unless I’m looking for something specific, her items are finally being filled away.

I’ve even seen her pictures so many times through the Foundation that they are beginning to seem like those pictures that come free in frames of people laughing and enjoying their lives. I have to remind myself that it is Isabella in that photo or better yet her and I in that photo, otherwise I tend to walk right past it. The only pictures that get me are the ones that catch me off guard that I have never seen or forget that I took. Those rattle me.

When you see me out and about, I look normal. I act normal. I seem normal. Actually, I’m starting to feel normal. I know the times of year when I can be a nut job and I tend to keep those days very hidden from the public. Her birthday is hard; the day she passed away seems even harder. Holidays are getting easier. I find that I even hide out less at the race; I’m actually out mingling with the masses. Where as years ago, I was hiding under the silent auction tables. ☺

I think my every day grief has presented itself in the form of little ticks I have. Loud noises, high anxiety and losing the need to have people or touch in my life. I’m a little closed off, I don’t like to meet new people and I’m incapable of small talk. I crave being alone and could days without talking to anyone. But honestly, I think those are just issues that I’m developing as I’m getting older. Not sure if those have much to do with grief. That’s just normal Erin nut job stuff.

So while it may seem that I’m about to jump off a cliff during these posts, just know that it’s a moment in time for me and I’m really just sitting here on Facebook, eating a turkey sandwich still in my pajamas like the rest of you.

-Isabella’s mommy

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Why I Regret It

Written by Erin Santos, Isabella’s Mommy & President of The Isabella Santos Foundation

Day 8 QuoteDay 8
Why I regret it…

How do you make a decision on remains? How do you make a decision on a child’s remains? Questions like these are horrible and they are ones I never thought I would be making at the age of 35. The truth is, there is no right decision. I think that I made the decision based off what I wanted for myself. I had to think that when I’m gone, I’m gone. Light me up, put me in some box (hopefully a decent looking one), and take me to a beautiful place. Let the wind carry my ashes and scatter me somewhere I love. I don’t want to be put in a box in the ground and decay with the bugs. I especially don’t want to be put in some marble kitchen counter top looking apartment home for ashes. Creep. Out.

But when it’s your child, you just can’t do that.

There is no discussion with them on what their wishes are. Their only wish is not to die. They can’t grasp the concept that someone is doing something with you when you die. To them, people are just gone. Grant and Sophia still don’t really know what is going on behind that name plate when we visit her. Lots of questions like, “How did she get in there?” or “Who are all these people with her?” “How can they all fit in there?” Sophia still tries to peer into the holes and walks around it like it’s some magician’s table that has a trap door somewhere. Eventually we are going to have a horrible discussion with them on what actually happened. I don’t think it’s going to be pretty. I can’t imagine they are going to be comfortable with what we decided, and it may truthfully scare the shit out of them – or even worse – they’ll hate us for it.

I’m not really sure if we had another good option. I just could NOT pick out a casket. So much of that seems worse. Maybe it was all those years of watching Six Feet Under on HBO that wigged me out about the whole death process. Or those horror movies about people being buried alive. People have nightmares about that, right? Although I have to say that watching someone get burned alive on Game of Thrones makes me want to sob like a baby. Why did I do that to her?

Sometimes I miss her so much that I think about taking her box from the Calvary cemetery and hiding it in my house; just so I know she is here with us. I wouldn’t tell my family, it would be my little secret. Jesus, I sound like a nutcase. I really only thought about this once last Christmas, and I eventually would have put her back…I think.

By cremating her, I have lost the chance to ever lay with her. But really, what am I going to do? Bring a blanket and pillow out there? Do I think I’m going to bring a picnic lunch and sit out there on top of where she is? This is the really sick shit that goes through my mind sometimes! At least I would know that she was under me though. For some reason that brings me comfort.

I felt like I knew the right thing to do, so that is what we did…and now I regret it. Somehow I feel like if we chose the other path, we would have regretted that too. Point of the story is there is probably no right way to handle a child’s death. Her entire journey was a series of split second decisions you have to make and then deal with the repercussions of it your entire life.

I wish I could have been making other decisions like what color to paint my kitchen, or if I should check out that new Meryl Streep movie or wait till it comes out on RedBox. Instead, I’m in my 30s and deciding on how to ultimately end a child’s existence. That is some F’d up shit right there.

-Isabella’s mommy

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