Miracles in the Making: Grant Recipient Aaron Barnette

One of our recent grant recipients Aaron is a 27 year old gentleman that lives in South Carolina with his beautiful wife and two adorable sons.  He used to work in a facility as a shipping and receiving manager.  Aaron currently is on disability due to his medical condition.  

Aaron was living a normal life until last summer when he began having stomach pains. He visited the Emergency Room twice with stomach pains. After the second visit,  doctors misdiagnosed him with Crohn's disease, which can be commonly discovered in your twenties.  During his stay in the hospital, his colon ruptured. Since Aaron had a positive family history for colon cancer, his doctors elected to perform a colonoscopy. Aaron has lost his mother to colon cancer.  They found several polyps in his colon and ended up medically inducing him into a coma.  Aaron now has a temporary ostomy bag and has undergone over 5 rounds of chemotherapy.

We were able to help Aaron and his family by granting one month's rent and car payment to help relieve some financial concerns that can come along with the diagnosis of cancer.
Blessings to this sweet family! Keep on fighting Aaron!

Miracles in the Making: Grant Recipient Charlandria Kidd

 Here is the story of one of our past grant recipients and her battle with cancer. She has utilized her diagnosis and story to start her own campaign, cancer is No Match For My GOD + Me. She is full of strength and power!

My name is Char Kidd, and I am a conqueror of cancer. Originally I was diagnosed with hemorrhoids, and I suffered with excruciating and unbearable pain during 2011. I constantly visited doctors’ offices because the treatments were not working. One year passed and I received the diagnosis of cancer on March 1, 2012 after undergoing a colonoscopy. As one can imagine, receiving the information of having stage III colon cancer at the age of 37 sent me into a state of shock, disbelief, and questioning God as to why this was happening to me. All in all, on March 1 2012 I made the conscious decision to fight for my life. A few weeks later after cancer was confirmed, I came across Meredith’s Miracles website. During my first week of chemotherapy and radiation treatments, I applied to Meredith’s Miracles for assistance. I was granted a miracle! Meredith’s Miracles made it possible for me to get back and forth to treatments for 8 weeks by providing me with a gas card and making my car payment for 3 months. They assisted me with other very important bills as well.  I am truly grateful to God that I was able to connect with this foundation!

October 25, 2013 marked the 1-year anniversary of when cancer was removed from my body. Kingdom Inspired and Divinely Delivered, my campaign, “cancer is No Match For My GOD + Me” was birthed after I took a Private Prayer and turned it into a Public Proclamation to inspire other cancer patients, survivors, and their families that they can and will win their battles against cancer. I really considered these words in my mind. I accepted them to be true in my heart, "cancer is No Match For my GOD + Me."  I adopted these words as my personal slogan while fighting cancer. It was a long and rough journey. Through chemo and radiation treatments, surgery to remove the tumor, and another round of chemo this message was imprinted in my mind. It became a part of the fabric of my being. I believed I was going to BEAT cancer, and I did! I do not look like the things I have been through, and it is by the grace of GOD. Look at me, I have been through a lot, I have some scars, but I'm still here.  I'm the living proof.  I'm well and cancer-free because He kept me. My mission is to Educate, Encourage, and Empower individuals affected by cancer, and I have designed t-shirts and other merchandise with my slogan on them. One of my future aspirations is to change healthcare policy concerning the lack of coverage for cancer patients. Through all of my endeavors I realize with Jesus Christ at the center of my life He causes me to triumph in all things. Visit Char Kidd online at www.charkidd.com to learn more about me and my journey. Connect with me on Twitter @charkidd1 as well.

Again, this was the most trying time of my life and because of the miracle granted to me by Meredith’s Miracles I was better equipped to fight for my life against cancer.

Sincerely,

Char Kidd

Kingdom Inspired. Divinely Delivered. 

Miracles in the Making: Grant Recipient Preston Welch

A Story from one of our recent grant recipients. We were able to help his family with their mortgage for one month... In his latest email to MMCCF wrote, "Thank you so much for all of your help and we really appreciate the assistance from the organization. Medical bills have been really overwhelming lately and knowing the mortgage will be paid next month has really given our family some hope of trying to juggle everything."

My name is Preston, I'm 31 and going through chemotherapy right now for colon cancer. I am married and have two young children (ages 2 and 8), as well as a cat and a dog. I appear healthy and young and had never had to worry about my health. For the past year, I had been experiencing symptoms of colon cancer but the symptoms were dismissed by doctors as IBS or hemorrhoids and a high fiber regimen was recommended. A few months ago, my GP referred me for a colonoscopy to see what was going on since my symptoms had never resolved and were becoming increasingly more worrisome. Throughout this process, everyone told me "You're too young, there's no way it's cancer." 

Unfortunately, it turns out that I had a 3" malignant tumor in my transverse colon, which was later diagnosed as mucinous adenocarcinoma. I was scheduled quickly for a CT/PET scan and surgery shortly after. Based on the size and scan results, they were estimating late Stage 3 or Stage 4. My surgery went fine and after being biopsied, my tumor was downgraded to an early Stage 2.  I  have been  receiving chemotherapy and will be receiving it for the next 6-8 months. It has been very difficult to manage the side effects of chemotherapy and remain full time at work in order to keep my insurance. 

The diagnosis of cancer was stressful enough as it was but the financial devastation has made things seem even more bleak.  I work full-time, but my small salary is mostly consumed by health insurance for my family. We have a high deductible insurance plan and then pay 20% after the deductible is met. This has meant that the medical costs have been several thousands of dollars, which we have been unable to afford to pay. We have been trying to juggle mortgage payments, car repair bills, childcare, and healthcare bills but there is not going to be a way to pay them all on our own.  

Preston's story is very similar to many of the stories of our grant recipients. We are grateful that we were able to give Preston and his young family a miracle this Thanksgiving Season! 

Giving Tuesday 2013

Giving Tuesday is Tomorrow: December 3rd!

#GivingTuesday, the Tuesday after Thanksgiving, is a new movement started in 2012 in order to give back. This is the day when it's your turn to give to others who need a little extra support this holiday season.
We are on a mission to raise $5k in ONE day for Meredith's Miracles Colon Cancer Foundation! Help us reach our goal by telling everyone you know about what we are doing and ask for a small $10 donation. If every Meredith's Miracle supporter donates just $10, we will collectively raise more than $5000! That's $5000 more to help young colon cancer patients and their families with the every day financial burdens of living with colon cancer.

One of our most recent grant recipients upon receiving the news about his grant, "this is the only good news that I've heard in 9 months." 

Give Now & give the gift of a Miracle.


Help us spread the word and copy the purple text & link below to post on your Facebook page to share in this national day of Giving!

I am on a mission to grant miracles to young cancer patients & YOU can help too! On this #GivingTuesday, a national day of giving, your generosity will help make an impact on the lives of young colon cancer patients. http://www.meredithsmiraclesfoundation.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=28&Itemid=9


We hope for a day when there is a cure for colon cancer. In the meantime, Meredith Miracles provides help to those with the disease today. Forward this email on to friends and family today to reach our goal of $5K in one day!


Join us & gift a Miracle. Spread the word.

Website. Twitter. Blog. Facebook.

MMCCF Dallas Holiday Auction 2013

Y'all, all I can say is that I'm sure that all of our board members mouths dropped to their knees when we heard how outstandingly generous the Dallas women were to MMCCF this year...

The event was an absolute knock out. We have a lunch (completely donated by friends of MMCCF), have some Christmas punch with a bit of spirits, and spend time with friends bidding against each other for fabulous gifts donated by each of our attendants. This year we had about 50 women in attendance and just had a blast! We had lots of gorgeous jewelry, Christmas decor, home decor, kitchen goodies, and a lot of others! It was seriously a fabulous and spectacular event.

Special shout out to our Auction Committee as they put so much effort into making this event perfect each year... Julie Holbert, Jan Feaster, Sheila Frye, and Aimee Larson. Thank you girls - you are beyond fabulous!

I want to share one of the coolest things that happened with our Holiday Auction this year. As Julie and Aimee were setting up for the auction the day before, Julie received a phone call from a women named Fredetta. Julie answers her phone to Fredetta's voice saying "Is this Meredith's Miracles Colon Cancer Foundation?" Julie replies "yes!" Julie and Fredetta proceed to converse for about 30 minutes including details about how Fredetta was diagnosed just shy of a year ago with stage 4 colon cancer and how she is in need of financial assistance. You ready for the amazing part? Fredetta lives 10 minutes away from where the auction was and she decided that she would come tell her story for the first time at the auction in front of a crowd of women she had never met. The best part is that she did! Fredetta was absolutely amazing. She was real. She was honest. There was not a dry eye in the room. Fredetta had just told her family, two weeks prior, that she was ready to start sharing her story... she sure started it off with a bang!

We were so blessed by Fredetta coming to share her story because it allowed the women at the Auction to put a real face and a real true story of our colon cancer patients. Fredetta got these women into the giving spirit by just telling about how it is living with a colon cancer diagnosis, going to treatments, and the financial burdens of it all. [We will share Fredetta's story with y'all soon!]

These Texas women GAVE y'all. They gave! 

They donated $17,080 this year.

My word. Hence, why our entire board was floored. We will be able to help SO many young colon cancer patients with their incredible generosity. Just as the donations are coming in... the grant applications are flowing in by the bunches. I mean bunches. We are working on over a dozen applications at the moment. We are seeing large needs as we wrap up this year and believe that they will continue to grow.

Thank you all for your support, thoughts, and prayers.

Lindsay Frye

MMCCF Board Member

Auction Committee Member

PS. Don't forget about Giving Tuesday (December 3rd, the Tuesday following Thanksgiving). Please consider participating with us in Giving Tuesday and donate to help our young colon cancer patients. Any amount of gift will help the financial burdens of our grant recipients. We thank you in advance!

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