31 Days of Making a Difference

        Today is the start of "Breast Cancer Awareness Month"...for someone like me it is kinda silly to have a month to remind you of the disease that ripped through your family and changed your life forever. I embrace the pink because it makes Tara smile, I do my part in raising the awareness to the cause to try and prevent others from being diagnosed at such a young age such as my wife.

        I have lived through the two years of treatment and recovery that Tara had to endure, I have walked 180 miles in the boldest breast cancer walk ever. I have met some of the bravest women to walk this earth, bravest for the fight that they have already fought and bravest because of the fight they still know is in front of them. I have raised close to $20,000 in two years time for an organization that is dedicated to finding a cure for this horrible disease, still all of this is not enough...I still feel like we can do more.

        That is why I have chosen to make a difference, 31 Days of Making a Difference in someone's life. I know about raising money, I know about walking 60 miles in 3-Days, I knew how to honor my wife by caring for her in her darkest days, I even know about posing for a half naked photo shoot on a 14 degree winter day all for the good of this cause...but I still knew I can do more.

        The 31 Day project started of as a challenge for myself to reach out and do less talk and more action, no newspapers, no tv cameras...just helping people being affected by this disease right now. I still can remember the feeling I had when winter was just a few weeks away and my house was not ready for the snow to fly, one saturday afternoon when Tara was deep into the chemo treatments 29 people from my church came over and closed up the outside of the house for winter, split firewood, raked leaves and weeded the gardens. From that day til Tara's last chemo treatment those families provided 2 meals a week for my family, that will never be forgotten...

         Now it is time to pass that blessing on to many other families, for the next 31 Days I will be putting my everyday life on hold and will be working to bless someone else just as we have been blessed. I invited all of my friends on Facebook as a way of gaining ideas for the project and for general support, turns out that alot of you would like to make a difference also. If you would like to help with the project and make a difference in someone's life here are a few ways you can help:

1. If you would like to make some meals for some families during the month of October that would be great, I am planning on serving 12 families 2 meals a week for 4 weeks...that's 96 meals.

2. If you would rather not cook the meals you could buy the supplies and Tara and I will make the meals.

3. You can donate to the "31 Days of Making a Difference" at www.tarasjourney.org and we will shop for the supplies and cook the meals.

4. You can spread the word about the project, find people we can help and pray for the work that we will be doing throughout the month that we will truly be making a difference in someone's life.

         So far we have requests for meals, yard work, general house maintenance, house cleaning, car rides to treatment centers and letter writing. This is a great way to teach your kids what it means to serve, join us for what I hope is an all year round project.

Send me an email at otowngames@aol.com with your contact info or call me at 440-610-4449 if you wish to help...