Skating for Hope Promo Cards

It was February of 2009 when I wrote down in my journal the idea to skate 24 hours for Hope Lodge (you can see the scan of that entry and how my idea was made into reality here).

Even though the initial idea was just for me to skate, Skating for Hope ballooned into a much bigger event – one I certainly needed help with. Like they had been doing my whole life (brain cancer comes to mind), my family and friends rallied around me in support and helped with all of the non-skating responsibilities needed to pull it off.

We had to organize food, raffle items, hockey players, volunteers, announcements, the website, special guests, music, and other things I’m sure I can’t think of. The Skating for Hope committee had the responsibility of making sure all of these ran smoothly during the event.

Even though skating and playing in three hockey games for 24 hours straight may seem difficult, I think I had the easiest job of anyone that was working at Skating for Hope – I was having fun the whole time.

To me, Skating for Hope was a perfect melding of two dreams. One dream of mine is to do whatever I can to help Hope Lodge. The second is to have my own hockey rink. Well, I did have my own hockey rink for a day and I used it to do the things I love: help cancer patients, skate, and play hockey.

There are so many people to thank for helping me make Skating for Hope happen, I’m sure I will forget someone. My family and friends are a constant reminder of the fact that the most important thing in life is the people you have in yours – I am able to do what I do because of the support of my family and friends. The Skating for Hope Committee (which was mostly my family), Jess, Nick and the FMC employees, Skating for Hope volunteers, Danny Manning, Jr., Greg Montalbano, Justin Horton, the BC/BU hockey alum, the 501^st Star Wars people, the Sharks, the Bruins, Worcester Magazine, The Worcester Telegram, people who donated raffle items, The Catholic Free Press, WHS and SJ Alum, all the skaters, and everyone who made a donation all contributed into making the first Skating for Hope a success – close to $15,000 was raised.

We had a post-SFH meeting today, and I shared with the group what part of my plan is for the future Skating for Hope events. I will continue skating/playing hockey for the full 24-hours until $1,000,000 has been raised for Hope Lodge. If we double the amount each year, that should take less than 10 – definitely doable.

I scanned these things because I finally put all of the pictures and videos together and posted the “Skating for Hope Short Film” here. I hope you enjoy and keep in mind there are a couple of parts that I’d call “PG-13”.

Thanks to everyone for helping out!