A Day With Erica Rae's Kids

ERK equals an Elderly Program too!

2012-02-24T06:50:00.000-07:00

ERK has an Elderly Program! Yes, we do! This program is near and dear to my heart and especially after the last couple of weeks. You see, my 76 year mother has been fighting an enormous blood clot which is located in her femoral artery in her left leg. The blood clot is from her abdomen to her foot....enormous, is an understatement. We as a family, circled the wagons and went to work by taking care of her. I took time off from work, my daughter relieved me when she got off work, we took her for blood draws after she got out of the hospital, my brother and his wife were there at the drop of a hat and my poor dad was a nervous wreck. I guess what I'm trying to say is that she had a "support group" and it makes me wonder how many of the elderly out there in our community have no one? It makes me so sad to think of someone elderly, well, anyone actually, having to go through the pain and misery that my mom has gone through the past 2 weeks alone. I know we never know the "whole" story about why these older individuals are alone, but why can't someone be there? I/we have a better idea of how our Elderly Program is going to work from now on to help these wonderful people who have made a difference in shaping our past/future and I hope that all of our donors will be there for them like you have been for the children. I/we are always collecting items like: toilet paper, toothpaste, laundry soap, dish soap, bar soap, deodorant, etc. Keep in mind that for some of our elderly these types of items are luxuries! Oh, and don't forget we also take money so that we can go shopping and buy the items that we are short. If you have any questions about our Elderly Program call us, this one is my baby and I can't wait to hear from you. 303-919-2829

No, I didn't fall off the radar....

2012-02-11T10:38:00.000-07:00

And yes, it's been awhile my friends....where to start? As Glinda the Good Witch would say, "It's always best to start at the beginning". The last time I was here we had just finished our first ever board retreat and after spending 8 hours locked (I say locked, tougue-in-cheek) in Erica's apartment, we were excited, overwhelmed, caught up in the moment - if you can call 8 hours a moment and ready to make some drastic changes to ERK. I know when I got home that night I was exhausted but totally on board with everything that had been discussed that day. When I woke up the next morning there was this niggling doubt in the back of my mind, kind of like the little devil on my shoulder saying "Hey, what happened yesterday?" and as I was going over the events of the day in my mind, those same words came blurting out of my mouth to no one in particular, as I was alone. I felt like at some point the impression was that ERK was broken and was in desperate need of fixing and I couldn't come to terms on when that had actually happened. I mean we had helped over 1,100 children have a Christmas that they would not have had, we had given needed gift boxes to 20 elderly couples living on subsidized housing with a $50 a month allowance, if you will, to buy neccesities such as toilet paper, toothpaste, laundry soap and the like and we had contributed to helping many, many school aged children have the neccessary school supplies to start school, so when again did we become broken? Perhaps I was overreacting, some of you know I do that, but I couldn't get my mind around all the changes that had been proposed. I decided that I needed to step back for a little while and do some serious thinking about my part of this non profit and what I was seeing for our future and what the future was beginning to look like after the retreat. So, I cut myself off for a few days and did some serious soul seaching. When I finally sat down and talked to "mama bear" I was pleasantly surprised to find out that she and many of the other board members were of the same mind. We weren't broken, we were just trying to become a "Corporate" non profit instead of the "Grass roots" non profit that we had had so much success with up to this point. So, I guess after all of my rambling, what I am trying to say is that we have voted as a board to not change our mission statement or our vision statement and it is going to be business as usual for ERK. We have learned so much in the past few months from our very dear friend Tavherlee about what we need to strive for in the future but for now we will be staying as is....one day when ERK becomes a household name we will have to impliment the wonderful ideas that Tavherlee has shown us. Thank you for all your support in the past and I/we certainly hope that we can count on your support for our future endeavers(sp) to be able to adhere to our mission statement: "Devoting ourselves to helping our community. Our main purpose is to help children that are living in abused and underprivileged situations." Please visit us at http://www.ericaraeskids.org/

First Retreat Over.....Many More to Come?

2012-01-15T16:55:00.000-07:00

Well, our first retreat is over and done with and Holy Cow did we get alot accomplished. Of course, "mama bear" and I had to have a little disagreement that the rest of the Board had to witness, but alas (I love saying alas), we HAVE been friends since we were 12, so it's all good and rest assured that we are still the best of friends. If you can't disagree with the important people in your lives - who can you disagree with? Anyway, I digress, we have a clear plan of where ERK is headed for 2012 and what we ARE going to accomplish. I say ARE because I truely believe that none of us on the Board will accept defeat on the proposed accomplishments. One of the main things that we worked together on today was new Mission and Vision Statements. Our old Mission Statement didn't cover everything that we have been doing since we added our Elderly Program and up to this point we had never had a Vision Statement; per se. Our new Mission Statement is unbelievable and we as a Board ROCKED it in working together to come up with it; "Our Mission is to give to those in need at the times they need it most. We do this by providing much needed items at critical times of the year to create a better quality of life." and our Vision Statement is "Our vision is helping our future by helping our community." Okay, maybe we had a Vision Statement but it only included the kids in our community and as you know we are now reaching out to the elderly too. We had a brainstorming session this afternoon to come up with fundraising ideas and I'm not going to go into detail yet because we need to do some more research on these ideas but I think we are going to have a great year as far as fundraising goes. Tavherlee has been and will be applying for many more grants and we now have official committees for things like Marketing, Finance, Statistics etc. and someday soon we will have other non profits wanting to grow up to be "just like us" - LOL! I am so excited about how far we have come in just 2 short years (believe it or not our 2nd anniversay is in February) and I can only imagine where we will be in the future. Thank you again for being there when we need you, without our volunteers and donors we wouldn't be celebrating our anniversay and all the things we have accomplished in the last 2 years.

Can you say Board retreat?

2012-01-14T11:22:00.000-07:00

Sunday, January 15, 2012 will be our first Board Retreat...8am til whenever....thank you, Tavherlee. This will be our first retreat since our inception (sounds like a movie, doesn't it). We have white boards, sticky notes, information (we had to approve before hand) and ideas to share. Work, work, work to decide what and how we are going to accomplish our goals this year for ERK. As I told you before, we received a $10,000 grant from Wal Mart's "12 Days of Giving" and that is really a very small amount of money in the real world of non profits to achieve everything that we want to accomplish this year. When you look at some of the other non profits around the country, $10,000 is pocket change, but to us at ERK it is HUGE!!!! Tavhelee, who is our newest Board Member, and has years of experience with other non profits, has been applying to corporations for future grants and I would like to ask everyone to keep their fingers and paws crossed that we are approved. Oh, the things we could accomplish with more grants! I certainly don't mean to sound ungrateful for our first grant of $10,000....because I am thrilled beyond belief with this grant. Wal Mart's grant will go so far to help us help the children in our community and I am really excited about our Board Retreat tomorrow because it is going to educate all of us on the Board as to how, where and why we need to do the things behind the scenes to achieve our dreams that we haven't known how to achieve before. You know, up to this point we have sort of "flown by the seat of our pants". Of course, it has worked for us, as we have been able to gift many children with Christmas, Back-to-School items, Fun Days, ets. but we need to move forward and become a "professional and organized" non profit that others wish to emulate. Please wish us luck tomorrow and don't worry; notes, papers and questions will be flying, we will of course be keeping our strength up with a "potluck" breakfast and lunch......stay tuned for an update on our first Board Retreat and where we will be going this year.

The BEST hugs in a long time!!!

2012-01-13T14:28:00.000-07:00

Today I met a darling little girl named Sierra and at 1am this morning Serra's older brother woke Sierra and their mom because he smelled smoke. Yes, you guessed it, their apartment building was on fire. Sierra, mom and older brother left the apartment with only their "jammies" on and whatever shoes they had time to throw on their feet. When your home is on fire, what do you do? You RUN and that's what they did. I have told many people that the only thing that terrifies me more that an F5 Tornado (and it must be an F5) is a FIRE! Fires are so fast, furious and quite often deadly that it is terrifying to find yourself and your family in the middle of one. I saw this story of the fire on the news this morning as I was getting ready for work and it made me so sad that another fire had displaced 16 families from their homes. As it happens, Sierra's mommy works at the same place that I do and one of my coworkers called me to tell me about her situation. I decided that ERK needed to do something to help this family and called our "mama bear" at ERK to get the go-ahead. After numerous phone calls, I found Sierra's mommy's phone number and set up a time to meet Sierra, mom and older brother at the local WalMart to give them a Gift Card from ERK to help them buy some clothes that weren't "1am jammies"that had been through an evacuation. Sierra's family are not sure when they will be able to return to their home to check out the damage and if anything is salvagable, so we at ERK want to make sure that they have things to call their own. Once they are able to evaluate the situation, we have a room full of items that have been donated to the program and I told Sierra's mommy that if need be, we can have a "shopping day" to help replace lost items from their home. When I left Sierra, mom and older brother they were headed to shop and when they gave me a hug of Thanks it was the BEST hug I have had in a very long, long, long time! I love being able to help and being a part of ERK makes that a possibility!!! Have a happy and safe weekend.

Goodbye, 2011! Hello, 2012!

2011-12-31T09:45:00.000-07:00

Well, it's that time of year when we say goodbye to one year and hello to another. For all of us at ERK 2011 was interesting to say the least....we learned alot about ourselves and our nonprofit. We gained new board members and we lost some, we made some mistakes and we learned from them, we got on each others nerves and we pulled together when the time was right and now we go into 2012 with a clear idea of where we need/want to be and ideas on how to get there. In 2011, we helped so many deserving children in so many ways, but we couldn't have done any of it without the support of all of you!!! As this year comes to an end, in just a few short hours, I can't thank you enough for all you have done for ERK this past year! For several years now we have been struggling to get our name out there and now with your help, people are starting to know who we are and what we are accomplishing in Erica's memory for our community. I believe that 2012 will be an amazing year for ERK and the children and elderly in our community will benefit like they never have in the past. Those of us that sit on the Board of Directors as volunteers are committed to making a difference for our community and all that that entails, so heres to a fabulous 2012!!! Have a safe and happy new year! visit us at http://www.ericaraeskids.org/

Two Days and Counting....

2011-12-23T06:30:00.000-07:00

It's December 23rd and Christmas morning is 2 days away, will all the good little boys and girls have something under the Christmas tree - will they even have a Christmas tree? No matter what the situation is that these wonderful children live in through no fault of their own, we at ERK are determined to make sure that they are remembered at Christmas as no child should wake up Christmas morning and not have a present from Santa. Some people may say that I'm not being "politically correct" by saying Christmas, Christmas, Christmas, but there you have it, I said it and I'll say it again, these children deserve a childhood and if that childhood includes a wish for Christmas and all that entails then we will climb mountains to make it happen for them. ERK had some very last minute requests for help, tragic stories all of them, 5 children who were evicted along with their parents from their apartment just because the landlord didn't like them, a mother with a substance abusing husband who threw her and her 3 children out of their house, a terminally ill man who couldn't provide any kind of Christmas dinner for his family! Please understand that the children that we help are in these tragic situations because of numerous reasons and as children they have no control. Don't judge, just help. I have learned that I had a "discrimination gene" until I started working with this program and I used to be one of those people that said "Well, the parents....." and then I realized it's the children that we need to help no matter what the parental situation is. I'm going to step off my soapbox now and I want to wish everyone a Very Merry Christmas!! Please visit us at http://www.ericaraeskids.org/ and donate if you can to help these wonderful children.

OMG, What an Exceptional Day!!!

2011-12-13T17:39:00.000-07:00

First great thing that happened today....wait for it.....wait for it.....wait for it.....Erica Rae's Kids, Inc. won our first grant. After 2 years of very hard work we got the news this morning that we have won $10,000 from the WalMart Corp. in their 12 Days of Giving! OMG!!!!!! There were over 5,400 nonprofits who were nominated and 145 that won and we were 1 of the lucky nonprofits to be a winner. Of course we on the Board have know for along time that we were winners, but now everyone will know - LOL! What we have accomplished with personal donations and our wonderful volunteers has proven to us on the Board that what we were trying to do for all of the children in our coummunity that were in need was the right thing to do, now with this money that we will receive from WalMart there is so much more and more of it that we can do!!! What a day!!! The second great thing that happened today is.....wait for it....the 2011 Christmas Program has been delivered to all 21 schools and to all the Foster Programs and the Elderly Program has been picked up.....let's hear those Cheers everyone!!! It's time to regroup and clean up some desks of some paperwork and then it will be "balls to the walls" to start all over again. Yeeeeeeessssss! Love what we do! Thank You everyone for your continued support!!!! Visit us at www.ericaraeskids.org

"It's a Wonderful Life!"

2011-12-10T16:38:00.000-07:00

Christmas presents wrapped - check; Candy - check; Stockings filled - check; Tags made - check; Bags bought - check; Volunteers rounded up - check and away we go.....Bag & Tag 2011 at Erica Rae's Kids, Inc. is complete!!! This morning over 30 volunteers showed up to bag & tag presents for over 900 underpriviledged and abused children that had been nominated for our Christmas program. We are so lucky to have all these wonderful people in our lives to help us fulfill our dream of helping these children that would not be able to have a Christmas unless someone stepped in to help. I know it makes me feel good to do this and I know that it makes everyone of the fabulous ladies that are on our Board of Directors happy too. We all have been through the ups and downs of life and if we can give back when we can it is a very powerful feeling. When all of the bags start going out to the schools throughout the community I know there will be alot of very happy children and relieved parents who have been worried and stressed out over how in this horrible economy they were going to be able to give their precious children a Christmas and still be able to put food on the table. Many of the parents in our community have to make that choice and it is such a sad thing to have to make a choice like that when so many of those parents don't want to burden their children with the fact of how dire the situation at home really is. If we can help with that burden then our job here is done....unfortunately, our job will never be done but we will do everything that we can to help each year. This year we had some very tragic stories and some of these children are so strong that all I can say is WOW, you kids are my heros!!!!! I do want to let everyone know that we were also able to put together 20 boxes for our Elderly Program which we didn't think we were going to be able to do since we have been undergoing a bit of restructuring and reorganizing but suprise, suprise we recieved some last minute monetary donations from some of the people who donated to this wonderful program last year. All I can say right now is - "It's a Wonderful Life" Thank you and Have a Merry Christmas from Erica Rae's Kids, Inc. visit us a www.ericaraeskids.org

Feeling sorry for myself...are you kidding me?

2011-11-18T17:59:00.000-07:00

I have to say that I was sitting here tonight feeling sorry for myself over several things and it dawned on me that I have a pretty good life. Really, Sioux pull your head out....there are so many people in this country that need help with finding a job, putting food on their table, keeping a roof over their heads, buying school supplies for their children, purchasing Christmas presents and I'm sitting here boo-hooing over stupid stuff. It's time to realize that our world is in dire straits and we need to do anything and everything that we can to "put things right"! Children are our future and we as a country need to remember that....our children will be the ones running the country in the future and we need to help them help themselves. There is a great song that says it all "Teach the children well". If we can help children to understand that we care and we want them to succeed then maybe, just, maybe our future will turn out allright. Heres to our future!!!! Help our children!! http://www.ericaraeskids.org/

RIP - Erica Rae

2011-11-17T17:36:00.000-07:00

Today is a sad and happy day at Erica Rae's Kids. Our program was created in memory of Erica Rae Hamann who passed away 4 years ago today, Erica loved to help people - especially kids and her mom started ERK to help her deal with the loss of her youngest daughter. The sadness and emptiness that she felt over the loss of Erica was overwhelming her and this is how she chose to deal with that emptiness and sadness. Our organization has helped thousands of children over the last 4 years since Erica's passing and this year we are on track to help 2,200 children have a Christmas that they would not have had if it hadn't have been for "Mama Bear" and her insight into what needed to be done to help her heal. The pain of losing Erica will never go away for us but helping others makes the days better and lets us remember what Erica started from a young age. As an organization we can give in her memory and let the children that need our help get to know who she was.....RIP, Erica and thank you for helping us help others. Visit us at www.ericaraeskids.org

It's Halloween and Christmas is right around the corner....

2011-10-31T17:47:00.000-06:00

I went to the store this afternoon to buy my Halloween candy - don't want to rush in to these things you know, anyway, I'm sitting here wondering how all those families are feeling who do not have the ability to buy candy of any kind; let alone candy to hand out to all the ghouls and goblins that will be ringing my doorbell in a very short time. Times are so tough right now for everyone that I know and we at ERK are in the process of starting our Christmas program. This Wednesday the board members are having our first working meeting of the year with many more to follow. We will do some meeting stuff and then it will be "balls-to-the-walls" putting together over 200 Christmas stockings - filled with all kinds of goodies. This year we are shooting to make 2,000 kids' Christmas a wonderful event that they will remember and their parents, too. At ERK we understand that our economy sucks and many parents won't be able to give their children a Christmas this year without some help and that's were we can come in to help. We don't get to see the children but we hope that what we do will help them understand what giving is all about as they grow up and become adults. If we can get even a few of these children to "pay it forward" (I know that saying is way over used but it does really say it all) we will be happy and satisfied. Happy Halloween and don't forget to visit us at www.ericaraeskids.org and if you can please make a donation.....thanks and blog at you soon.

Laughter and old friends.....

2011-10-24T18:47:00.000-06:00

Friends are what keep the world going! I have the best friends ever and I'm the first one to tell you that...my friends have been my rock throughout my life. They have been there through thick and thin and I certainly would not be the person I am today without my friends. I just spent several hours with two of my oldest friends and I don't mean old as in old I mean old as in we have been friends since 1972 when we had just turned 12 years old (we're now 51). We all met at East Junior High in Aurora, Colorado and in those days you would never have thought we would still be together in 2011. We were all so different but we were drawn to each other. My one friend came in from Houston to help with ERK stuff, she's a "high-falutin" executive (LOL) at an airline that shall remain unnamed to protect the innocent and my other friend is Erica Rae's mom who I have decided to nickname "Mama Bear" because it is from her that Erica learned to help people in need, so anyway tonight "high-falutin", "mama bear" and myself were getting some last minute things done for the Halloween Party that ERK is helping throw tomorrow for Adams/Arapahoe County Foster Care and when the 3 of us get together the laughter starts and it just doesn't stop. We will always be friends and we will always know that when one of us is in need we will be there for each other....I hope that everyone has friends that they can count on because you never know when you might need them. Without our friends at ERK we certainly couldn't do what we do....I love you mama bear and high-falutin.....Laughter is Good and we all need to remember that.

It was 5am and I was awake....

2011-10-23T16:59:00.000-06:00

Yep, when I looked at the clock this morning it said 5:00 am - REALLY! I woke up thinking about what I was going to blog about and couldn't go back to sleep. I have to tell you right now that I have a little obsessive-compulsive personality disorder going on and when I get started on something or I get interested in something I just can't turn it off. I would like to say it's a curse, but it's not! I have been making myself not sit down at the computer since "o-dawn-thirty" this morning because everything that I wanted to talk about is running in circles in my head. All of us at ERK are so excited this time of year that it is balls-to-the-walls busy. This Tuesday we will be spending time with the children at a Halloween party that are in the foster care programs of Adams-Arapahoe Counties and it will be the first time that some of the ladies will ever get to meet the children that ERK helps. Our program is all about confidentiality so we usually just get lists with last names and the gender and the age of the children, so this is going to be a real treat to get to see those faces light up with all the fun things that ERK has in store for them at their party. Party On, Garth!!!

More about us....

2011-10-22T09:39:00.000-06:00

I'm sitting here wondering where to start and as Glinda, the good witch, would say "It's always best to start at the beginning" so the beginning of our story starts with a little girl not named Dorothy but Erica Rae. Erica was a very giving, caring, creative and loving girl who lived life in the fast lane. She wanted everyone to be taken care of as she had been taken care of all her life by her mother and her father and her older sister. If she found out that someone was in need of something, be it food, clothing or place to stay she would do what she could to help that person. Erica's best friend was her mom and they had a very special bond. When Erica passed away her mom went through some very hard times trying to deal with the loss of her daughter. Erica Rae's Kids, Inc. was born to help mom with that loss and the rest, we hope, will be awesome history in Erica's memory. I sit on the Board of Directors of ERK for many reasons but the main reason is my love of helping others. Our Board currently consists of 8 fabulous women who volunteer hundreds of hours a year in pursuing our passion-"Helping our Future by Helping our Children". Our Wicked Witch is poverty, hunger, homelessness and abuse. The statistics are staggering, but that is for another blog. Please check us out at www.ericaraeskids.org and have a great day!

It's a Challange!!

2011-10-21T17:09:00.000-06:00

Today is Friday, October 21, 2011 and this is the first blog for "A Day With Erica Rae's Kids". We are a children's nonprofit based in Aurora, Colorado and our passion is helping underpriviledged and abused children. We do this out of love and in memory of Erica Rae....I really want to tell the whole story right now but there is so much to tell that I feel it must be done a little at a time to keep you coming back. The way I look at it is, if Stephen King can write "Novella's" so can I. Stay tuned and come back often. The children need your help too!