Sometimes fundraising can be so hard and lately it’s taken a toll on me. Nothing significant or life altering, just a few more “no’s” than “yes’s” and a lot of anxiety about producing the results we hoped for. For me, when it comes to numbers it always goes back to how many people we can help and how we can help them.

When we don’t meet certain goals I feel like I am failing the people that I so desperately want to help. But the disappointment touches on a much bigger picture for me. I focus so much on helping those who are here because there is nothing I can do for the ones that don’t survive. And that eats me up inside. Occasionally I will get a message that a friend of a friend is in the hospital with sepsis. They ask me if I have any advice. But I’m not a doctor and can offer nothing meaningful except for my prayers and assurance that I’ll be there.

Yesterday I had messages from two friends within just a few hours that both of their fathers were admitted due to sepsis. There’s nothing I can do. There’s nothing I can really say. And it just makes me want to scream that sepsis keeps happening. It keeps disrupting lives and breaking hearts and killing far too many people.

So I get to work. I talk about it with anyone from the guy at AT&T to the PTA at my kid’s school. It just doesn’t feel like enough. I’m just one person renting a little space on this Earth and this problem feels insurmountable. So I fundraise, I try to tell everyone about the work we are doing, the people we are helping. It’s good work. It’s God’s work. I’d give it all away right now except then there wouldn’t be any left for the ones who will need us in the future. Fundraising is what we do to ensure we can continue to this work. And so sometimes the no’s are just a little harder to hear.

When I do get a little down it’s not too hard to pick myself back up. I just have to think about who we have helped:

128 sepsis, ARDS and TSS survivors with $1,000 grants.

2,400 families at The Children’s Hospital of the King’s Daughters.

Over 1,000 Period Planners given to five local homeless shelters.

Eight families battling rare childhood cancers in Australia.

And just because a cute picture of Eva is always a good idea:

Love,

Audrey

#PSdontusetampons