This is Olivia and Bobby — the little but fierce love warriors who recently delivered a WHOLE LOT OF LOVE FROM YOU to Second Story, a shelter for homeless women and families in their town. Olivia and Bobby brought with them (in addition to their mamas) these love offerings, which you provided through your one-time and monthly donations to Together Rising: 24 rolls of paper towels, 80 rolls of toilet paper, 9 boxes of diapers, 4 containers of laundry detergent, 10 SmartTrip metro cards preloaded with $50 each, and HUNDREDS of cuddly pillows handmade by YOUR CHILDREN for these babies through the Little Loving Hands project. These gifts were in addition to the $50,000 you gave last year to Second Story through Together Rising. Second Story (formerly known as The Alternative House), provides support to at-risk children, youth, and their families through counseling, shelter, crisis intervention and outreach, in Falls Church, Virginia. Your first $25,000 donation to Second Story housed three young women and their children in one of the Assisting Young Mothers townhouses. Your second $25,000 donation provided therapeutic services to six young mothers for a full year. This includes enabling each young mother to […]
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LOOK AT OUR ELLIE. Two years ago, Miranda wrote to Together Rising about her warrior daughter, Ellie. Ellie had been in seven different foster homes before Miranda was lucky enough to adopt her as her own. Miranda told us that her girl had a genetic disorder that caused her legs to be amputated to her knees and her hands to look different, too: “Ellie is healing on the outside and the inside. We are healing together—and she inspires me to carry on every day. She is my warrior baby. My wildest dream for Ellie is new legs. Ellie loves to run. All Ellie wants to do is run, but she is constantly left behind. I don’t want my warrior baby left behind. The legs are incredibly expensive, though, so it’s just out of the question. I can’t give my baby what she needs the most,” her letter said. We told you Ellie’s story. You contributed $260,000 in 24 hours during the Sheroes Love Flash Mob. $18,000 went to buy Ellie the legs she needed to RUN. (The rest of the donations went to serve 175 more Sheroes.) We’ve kept in touch with Ellie’s mom over the years, checking on our […]
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“I’ve never looked big a day in my life. No matter. My daughter and I pay attention. We know what the world wants from us. We know we must decide whether to stay small, quiet, and uncomplicated or allow ourselves to grow as big, loud, and complex as we were made to be. Every girl must decide whether to be true to herself or true to the world. Every girl must decide whether to settle for adoration or fight for love. There on the bed, in her pigtails and pain, my daughter was me – the little girl I once was, the woman I am now, still struggling to answer the questions: How can I be expansive and free and still be loved? Am I going to be a lady or am I going to be fully human? Do I trust the unfolding and continue to grow, or do I shut all of this down so I fit?” – Glennon Doyle, Love Warrior Racheal understands this all too well. After battling against anorexia for years, Racheal found herself in the hospital after her disease nearly killed her last fall. Having been in and out of the hospital 28 times […]
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Yesterday, you gave thousands of mamas diapers for their babies when they had none. At 8:50AM our time we got an urgent call from Dani and Josie, the warrior women with whom we have partnered for two years to bring millions of dollars of life-saving support and services to refugees, internally displaced families and unaccompanied children across Europe and Syria. Dani’s 911 call was in response to today’s visit to the refugee camps in Greece — the place where brave families, desperate to escape torture and death, end up after a terrifying journey across the sea in overcrowded plastic dinghies led by ruthless smugglers. The camps are overcrowded, filthy and full of terrified, starving people. And these are the lucky ones. These are the lucky ones. When Dani and Josie’s team arrived to the camp today, they found that since funding had been eliminated for diapers — there were no diapers in camp for the thousands of little ones. The filth and pain were rampant – they found fathers literally taking their last shirts off their backs to tear their only shirt up and create makeshift diapers for their babies. So they called us 8:50 […]
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