This may come off as kind of a humble brag but I assure you that's not the intention.
I'll try to give the quick version in order to shorten the post:
I have a good buddy who out of the blue was recently was diagnosed with a pretty rare soft tissue cancer....Lime size tumor behind his left kidney. He had been having stomach pains for a few weeks but attributed it to being upset about his mother who he had just watched pass away from the same type of cancer.....and just thought it was nerves or an ulcer or something. The pains went away and he thought that was that.....but....a good friend of his wife convinced him to go get a scan because of his mother and biological father both dying of cancer within days of one another.
He did and he in fact had cancer and within two weeks of finding this tumor they had him in surgery to remove it. Initially they thought they'd have to remove his left kidney and spleen....but when they got in there they were able to cut everything out they needed but also removed then transplanted his left kidney onto the right side of his body. so both of his kidneys are now next to each other...kind of unique. Anyway, as you can imagine the recovery from that surgery alone is going to be brutal so he's missing work for some time.
I knew from the past that the mens league hockey club we both play in had done a couple benefits for guys in the past....so I reached out to the President of our league who in turn reached out to the Hockey Club that our kids play on who owns the ice and with a couple hours of my first phone call they had donated an entire day of ice to us and the use of the grounds to host a fundraiser. At that time I created a Facebook account and Event Page and started reaching out to folks to help organize.
Over the next two months we were able to put together a good approach to utilizing the ice for all age groups and we were able to get all the details ironed out as far as huge outdoor tents, tables, chairs, food, drinks etc etc. It all just flowed together. All the beer was donated, had people donate the sodas and water, a local BBQ joint donated 10 pulled pork butts, the St. Louis Cardinals head chef got us burgers, dogs, bread chips etc etc for cost....I mean down the line of what we needed the need was met to the tune of yesterday all I owed out of pocket for the event was $875. So many people just helping out.
The way I planned the day of hockey for the kids and the cost for the teams I knew that we'd have $8k in the bank just from registrations which were filled within days. At that point I was thinking to myself we'd make another $4-5k the day of and be able to get this family $12-13k to help out. Well, the response was incredible! The event went off about as well as it could of, so many people donated baskets to be raffled off and a ton of folks stopped by the event to support the family.
When all was said and done we were able to raise $26,208.00 for this family!!! I mean, I was floored! The family was just in disbelief. The response from our hockey club's parents and the community was above and beyond what we ever thought it would have been. It's still crazy to think we were able to raise that kind of money in one day for these guys. There was an anonymous sealed letter to the family that has $1k cash in it. All day random people just handing us hundreds of dollars at a time just saying don't want any raffle or food....just put this in the pot. Had a guy show up....walk in and hand over $500 and said 'thanks' and left. Just an overwhelming response and support for this family.
I will say that the guy who we did this for is the type of guy who will do anything for you and WANTS to do anything for you. Very giving person and well liked and respected. He's just a good dude and it was awesome to see him and his family be the beneficiaries of such generosity.
He goes in tomorrow for his three month check up and scan after the surgery to see if it's returned or not and to make sure they got it all....so, he's not out of the woods yet....but it was great to give that family that day yesterday to absorb all the love that was coming towards them.
Anyway.....what I witnessed yesterday is 100% a 'faith in humanity' moment in time.