The past couple of weeks can only be described as exciting, strange, inspiring, sad, purposeful, and full of love.  This week, Little Pink Houses of Hope opened up applications for families to apply for the 2011 Family Beach Retreats.  Each family’s story has touched my heart and left me feeling like the work that we are doing and the impact that our donors are having is going to transform lives.  We also posted applications for volunteers for this year.  This year of retreats are being dedicated to Little Pink Houses of Hope’s first volunteer, my dad.

On January 18th, 2011, my dad passed away after a relatively short bout with bladder cancer.  Simply put, he was the best man that I ever knew.  But what many people do not know is the impact that he had on the foundation of Little Pink Houses of Hope.  Last summer, before he got sick, I had a chance to take my dad out for dinner and pick his brain about what I should do and how I could do it.  Our conversation was wonderful- full of insights into a dynamic business mind (which is typically not a side that I had ever really been exposed to).  I left the dinner thrilled with his support and dependent on him to help put together all of the financial and business plans to get Little Pink up and running.  So off he went to create budgets, charts, plans, etc.  He volunteered his time, talents and energies because he believed in the idea of Little Pink and he believed that the work we were creating was going to truly help families in need.  As Little Pink embarks on its first year of volunteers and retreats, I dedicate the work that we do to Larry Patten, Little Pink Houses of Hope’s first volunteer.  Thanks Dad.

If you are interested in becoming a volunteer for Little Pink, please visit http://www.littlepinkhousesofhope.org/ to fill out an application.