2011 Walk for Lupus Now Awards Party

What a wonderful night!

Last night was the awards party for that little fundraiser I blogged,

FB posted,

emailed,

mailed,

called,

talked endlessly about last year...

you might remember hearing something about it  ;)

And thanks to all of you who participated, donated, prayed, posted, emailed, donated again, re-posted, and encouraged us along the way, we earned 2nd place out of all the Los Angeles teams!

Our final total was

$23,320

simply. amazing.

But that's not all!  We also took home the

1st place prize for TOP individual fundraiser-er

My final tally for last year's walk ended up being

$14,620



unbelievable.

thank you all.

Last night was so fun.  We met at Jillian's on Universal Studios Blvd in Universal City.

I love going to these events because it's like a reunion!  These people are my family.  We walk in and everyone is cheering and calling my name and running up to me to give me hugs.  I felt like a celebrity!

It was so crazy!  Everyone knew who I was! 

I got to talk with my celeb pals, Jed and Maurissa Tancharoen Whedon

Hi guys!

AND my other celeb pal:

Felicia Day

Another dear dear lupie friend of mine was there,

Wendy Rogers!

It's funny walking into that room and these people KNOW who I AM. 

Just a small town girl fighting for a chance at a long and healthy life.

They were of course in love with my little Super Woman... and yes, she wore the dress again. 

(I wish it wasn't blurry, she looked adorable!)

She was a little nervous to go in, but I told her these were our friends, so she grabbed her blankie and headed in without me!  Such a big girl.

After dinner, they held the awards portion of the night.  It was amazing to hear how much money everyone was able to raise.  They started off with the individual awards and anyone who raised over $1,000 got this medal:

Pretty snazzy huh?

And then she announced the top individual YAY!!!  That's me!

She even asked me to give a speech:

I said, "How much time can I take, I could talk all night!"

She nervously laughed... 

what can I say...

I inherited my mother's gift to gab

(love ya Mom!)

I was going to put my speech on here, but this blog post is already so long.

So I'll summarize:

Basically, I thanked Club Mo for their last minute donations to help me stay in the lead. 

I mentioned that even though this was an individual award it truly was a team effort!   I couldn't have raised so much money on my own, it took all of my team members, all of you who read this blog, all of you who saw our posts on FaceBook and thought this cause was worth your hard earned dollars.  I am truly grateful for each dollar donated.

I talked about how awesome and creative my team was and briefly discussed what fundraising events they came up with. 

I gave a few tips on using the internet and how we made videos, wrote blog posts, posted on FB, and sent emails.  Told them about writing articles for local newspapers and mailing letters to friends and family with self addressed stamped envelopes.

I also mentioned who we walked in honor of and talked a little bit about the ladies on the back of our team shirts and why this walk was so special to us.

Talked about why I walk and shared my story.  And just when I was talking about her, Super Woman came running up to me. ♥  Everything I do is for that little girl to have the best fighting chance if she should ever be diagnosed with lupus.

Then I thanked my husband for being the rock star that he is and for being so incredibly patient and understanding with me, not just during fundraising time, but every day.

So that was my speech ... in a nutshell.  :D

They moved on to the team awards and the top 10 teams were awarded this very pretty frame:

And right before it was over, they announced the winners of the Delta Airlines gift.  Which was 2 free round trip tickets!  They gave out 2 sets of these and one of them went to our very own

Renee Green!

YAY!!!!!

Congratulations Renee!

So they ended the night announcing this year's walk and the new website and LOOK WHAT PHOTO THEY HAVE ON THE SCROLL on the homepage:

Here, let's take a closer look:

YES!!!

Team Knaup!

Just love seeing our aqua shirts!

So from the bottom of our hearts,

THANK YOU!!!!

SO MUCH!

Thank you for believing in us and for helping us make a difference in the world of lupus.

(Does anyone else notice how that penguin always manages to photo crash?)