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My Precious Pennies

I will be AWAY until late February as we do this moving thing...again.

Ginger from Attention Target Shoppers & Tricia from 1stopmom
will be holding down the fort in the meantime - thank you so much, ladies!

Tuesday, September 23, 2008

Being thankful & giving back: a giveaway

UPDATE: This contest is now OVER.  Congratulations to our winner, Marlena! 

On a mere whim, I decided to read BeCentsAble's new Charity Challenge post, and for the selfish reason of wanting to have something to do so I could stay up for 5 more minutes chowing down on some late-night Monkey Munch, I decided to follow her links to blog of Scott & Carol Decker. The blog is run by Scott, and chronicles their lives since the birth of their baby girl about 3 months ago.

And for the next hour or so I just read their entire blog with my mouth wide open because I cannot believe how the birth of a precious little girl can turn out to be such a blessed event and such a tragedy at the same time. An emergency c-section followed by hypotension from a septic pneumonia infection cost Carol her legs, her left arm, and her eyesight (read the news article here).

I encourage you to go to their blog and read their story, make a donation to their PayPal account, or stop by one of the current fund raisers they have going. Part of the reason why I'm counting My Precious Pennies is so I can give back for my good fortune - whether that giving back is by hauling off bags of "free" CVS/Walgreens goodies to the USO, or donating my coupon savings.

And in case you need some extra motivation to donate, I am going to have a giveaway for $400 in coupons and a set of address labels, or anything else that you desire and is within my designing capabilities. Except this time entries will work a bit differently - there are only two ways to enter:
  1. Donate to the Decker family via PayPal (the link is on their website), and you will earn one entry for every dollar that you donate. Just forward the PayPal receipt to me via email, and I'll enter you once for every dollar that you donate towards Carol's rehab and prosthetics.
  2. Blog about this giveaway and the Decker family (make sure you include a direct link back to their blog) and leave me a comment with the permalink. If you don't have a blog you can also email your friends about it - just forward me that email.
This giveaway will end at midnight CST on 9/27.
The winner will be announced & emailed 9/28, and has 48 hours to get back to me.

Beyond helping a young family through a difficult time, for a mere dollar you can have a chance to save your family hundreds of dollars with the coupons. And don't forget you can often stack manufacturer's coupons with store coupons and sales - the saving possibilities are endless. Help out a young family in a time of trial and donate today.

After I finished reading every single one of their posts, I could not help but go over to my own sleeping 4 month old and hug and kiss her until she (nearly) woke up. I cannot imagine what the family is going through, and I cannot even begin to fathom not being able to hold or see my daughter. I remember nearing going nuts when the hospital wouldn't let me see my princess after she was born. I held her briefly and then she was whisked away for 5 agonizing hours, and if they hadn't brought her back I would have stormed into the nursery in the middle of my blood transfusion to fetch her myself. And from seeing the pictures of their family before all of this happened, they looked like any other young family you would meet on a regular day. They look like our neighbors. They look like my sister-in-law and her husband. They look like us.

I'm just floored at the thought that this can happen to anyone. C-sections are almost considered normal in this day-and-age. It's just not a big deal. It's merely a different way of giving birth. Like taking the bus or the subway to work. Just a different means to the same end. For that matter, giving birth is such a routine procedure these days, it's hard to comprehend that a couple decades ago people died in childbirth. It's hard to comprehend that women in other countries still lose their lives in childbirth. I feel foolish to admit that my biggest fear as my labor started was that the burritos I was making at the time would get cold. It's absurd to think that other women enter their labor fearing for their life and the life of their unborn child.

Enough of my senseless rambling - visit the Decker family website and donate today.

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