I am so excited to share that the party was a blast and a big success! With big thanks to Y-O-U for supporting me, coming to ride and joining in on the virtual ride! Thanks to your awesome work and the match from The Donachie Foundation, 86 backpacks filled with new school supplies and uniforms are going to abused children in Dallas so they can start the school year filled with help and hope.
Paige, the executive director at Community Partners and world renowned blogger, came to the event and did the spin class with us. She is one dedicated lady and a special mentor to me!
Also on hand were my mom and my sister, who are awesome and inspire me in all my crazy ideas. They're always down for anything and ready to support me, including my sister who came in from Austin and hitched a ride with friends to make it in time when her car broke down! Best Sistah evaaa.
So appreciative of all my friends who came! My wonderful friend Ruthie was there with her shiny new engagement rings and NOT her dog, who I have a bloody history with.
So many fun riders! Including CPD staff and members of their young professionals group I am in, yCPD. Any twenty - thirty something looking for more ways to get involved with charity projects should join this group!
Markus works so hard to make all my dreams and schemes logistically possible and then promptly makes sure I get all the glory. He was working lots of long hours leading up to the event and still helped me make it perfect. And he wore his Kermit shirt!
Every rider got a big slice of cake from Val's Food with a Twist and agreed with me that it is the best cake ever. You can still order one this month and have $10 from your cake benefit Community Partners of Dallas' Back to School program!
Paige gives this cake a big thumbs up and I do too. I should know because I've eaten so much of this cake in the past month it is coming out of my ears. Still amazing with every bite!
A HUGE thanks to the Flywheel team for making this event possible and staying open and staffed while creating a special spin ride just for us. These are some of the most phenomenal people in Dallas, and I am so lucky they gave their time and talents to do this for children in celebration of my birthday!
Last night I went to Community Partners for a yCPD volunteer night and stuffed backpacks to get them ready for distribution day. We got these print outs with a child's name and uniform sizes. Gabrielle and 85 other children will be confident and ready on the first day of school because of your generosity. This moment made it all real to me, and I hope you are able to see how each of your donations touched a very special life.
And if you are wondering what I've meant by "filled with new school supplies," here is everything that goes into a 7-12 grade backpack. Quite impressive! Thanks to bulk purchasing, a donation of just $25 makes this possible.
If you still want to fund a backpack, you can donate at the Community Partners of Dallas' website. Just type "Flywheel" in the "in honor of" field at your checkout to be part of the match!
This was something fun, something different than the average birthday and a little experiment. Look what we did along the way - made life better for 86 innocent children who deserve more than what they've had. Thank you, thank you, thank you! I can't wait to see what we do next!
