CF WALK RESULTS!

Cystic Fibrosis Walk on June 28th:

Princeton Great Strides CF Walk 
June 28th  8:45 am - 11:30 am
Zearing Park , Princeton IL 

OVER 120 people RAISED $13,400 that day for CF research! 

Next year's Tentative date: June 27th (2015)

*More info and pictures can be found on our Facebook page : "like" our page here!

The day went so well, I couldn't believe it. No major problems, everything was smooth sailing. We got everything set up and as people started to show up, we had raffles, face painting, and music for them to
enjoy (along with granola bars / gatorade/ water for a light snack). I'm glad we made check-in/Registration an hour long. It took every minute of that to get all 120 people signed in and donations gathered.

My sister, Mom, and Best friend did the registration table for me! I think they did a great job and I have told my sister she has complete control over registration next year- because she was amazing!!!! Kudos to my volunteers and helpers!

So around 9:45 I gave my speech (Which I will post in another blog post later, I'm still collecting, pics/video from everyone who did them for me)!! I also had another lady from the community speak, sadly her son lost his battle to Cystic Fibrosis in 2005, he would have been around my age. She was an amazing partner in raising funds (along with her best friend -a mutual friend of mine). Between the 3 of us we were able to gather over 30+ raffles prizes to give away and find over 25 businesses to donate to the walk!!!!

I discussed what CF was (Read about how CF affects me HERE) in my speech, I shared about the great new advancements that CF research has done for us, just in the last 3 years (we have now developed two new drugs that target underlying causes for CF). However, these are not cures, they just help us to remain healthier and take a bit of burden off of us. I talked about how there are thousands of mutations and that in order to have CF you need to have 2 mutations, which means there are thousands of combinations of mutations needing research.

Also, during my speech I wanted to discuss what would happen next year for our walk site!!! Here's some great news:

NEXT YEAR since we raised over $13,000 we will be bigger and have better resources. We will have our own website for our walk, where people can sign up (even start their own teams consisting of co-workers, family, and friends). I'm excited about having multiple teams at our walk next year, this will help us to spread word and continue to grow in size and raise more money each year!

So if you are planning on joining next year, you are more than welcome to join my team (which is still called TEAM CF² Which stands for "Courageously Fighting Cystic Fibrosis" ) OR feel free to start your own team and invite others to walk with you!

After I spoke, we had our other speaker (who I mentioned above) and she explained that Great Strides is the Cystic Fibrosis Foundations single LARGEST national Fundraiser, with over 600 walk sites and raising over 40 millions dollar a year for CF! Of each $1.00 donated .90 cents goes straight to research!!!!! This is a such a large portion that we really can make a difference with these walks!

Face painting was a big hit with the kids and they enjoyed the play equipment too,while parents could purchase raffles and win some great gift certificates or gift baskets. And thanks to Handmade by Peggy K for donating all the cure crocheted toys for raffles (Check our more of her items on Etsy HERE)

Then at 10:00 am we walked around the walk path at zearing, which actually turned out to be a lovely walk, I thought it would be to small, but it was great! I wasn't sure about the location choice at first, but after this year, I think we should use it again! It ended up being perfect!

I didn't realize how many people were really there until I looked back and saw everyone walking!!!

While we walked the path, I had some lunch volunteers setting up our pizza, chips, cupcakes, and getting the ice cream (that Sisler's Ice Cream donated), so when we all got back we could start eating lunch!!!

Of course we had leftovers, but better too much than not enough. During lunch I drew the names for the raffle prize winners, we had over 38 certificates or gifts donated to our walk!!!!! Lots of people went home with great gifts!

So I want to thank everyone who sponsored, donated, volunteered, and walked with us last Saturday!!!


We had over 120 people and RAISED over $13,400 

(we still have a few more coming in...so stayed tuned for the exact amount). 


$13,400 exceeded my goal of $10,000 and is a GREAT start to a fantastic site for a CF Walk! 

I was excited to hear so many people talk about coming to next year's, some even mentioning they would create their own teams and bring more people!!! If you have pictures, video, etc please email it to cysticfibrosiswalk@gmail.com   ALSO I'm asking for people's feedback about the event, stuff you liked, didn't like, and any suggestions can be emailed to and greatly appreciated!!!

Thank You Everyone it was an amazing day!!!!!! I'm continiously amazed and blessed by all the love and support, my family, friends, and our comminty has to share!!!!!
(photo credit: Hal Atkins www.halatkinsphoto.com)