Blogathon 2009 - BC Children's Hospital

This year's Blogathon takes place on July 25th, starting at 6am PDT. As most people know, last year I teamed up with Rebecca Bollwitt to help support the Union Gospel Mission in Vancouver. With some help from Matthew Good, the three of us raised around $8,000 I believe for Vancouver's homeless.

Without a doubt, Blogathon is an event that I wanted to be a part of this year. I briefly debated supporting a local Chilliwack charity, but given that I really don't know of many here, I decided not to go that route.

Lately I've found myself spending quite a bit of time with my niece and nephew. Thankfully, they've been healthy their whole lives, but it's not lost on me that one day one of them might hurt themselves, or possibly get extremely sick. Even though I'm relatively young, I've lost some of my friends, some of which even passed away in high school. My own cousin Darren was out with his girlfriend one night years ago, felt sick, and ended up dying in the hospital that night from an undiagnosed heart defect. My friend Katherine here in Chilliwack also has a little girl with an inoperable brain tumor, one that nearly cost her her eyesight just a few weeks ago.

This year I've decided to support the BC Children's Hospital for Blogathon. I'm still working out the details, but on July 25th, I'll hopefully be doing a 24 hour writing marathon to see if I can raise both money and awareness for the hospital and the families there. I'm also hoping to profile a few kids to showcase their stories during the event.

Hopefully I'll have my new website up before July 25th, in which case I'll have a special Blogathon section going. Last year was a bit of a rollercoaster ride for me during the event, since I had never done it before, but this year I should be an old pro, so it should be quite a bit smoother.