Elaina's light

From Morgan:

When I received Elaina's diagnosis my immediate reaction was fear that Elaina's life would not have purpose. I quickly knew that if I wanted to be able to be positive I had to find a way to understand why Elaina was sent to us and what the plan for her life and legacy would be. Originally, our family had a hope to be able to donate Elaina's heart valves after birth to enable her to help another family. As Elaina grew it was apparent that due to her anencephaly and her later diagnosis with IUGR that she would not meet the donation requirements to be able to move forward as a donor. We felt at ease with this because we had already been discussing how we would like to create some type of nonprofit to make Elaina's legacy more public, to help others, and to continue to hear her name throughout the years. Initially, I had the idea to find hats that were most suitable for anencephaly babies and have them stocked at the hospital so that parents would have options upon the birth of the anencephalic baby in terms of head coverings. Then, I started thinking about the immediate impact of her diagnosis and what that felt like. I remember how surreal it felt to come home with such a heave burden of a life limiting diagnosis of my unborn child and nobody outside of my friends and family knowing what I was going through. The rushed driver on the way to work did not know they were swerving around someone who was struggling. The grocery clerk didn't know that she was taking payment from a mom who would soon have to be making plans for her daughters death. Bills were still due, the house still needed to be cleaned, and my living children still needed doctors appointments, feeding, bathing, snuggles, bedtime, and all the other things that go along with being a mother. These realizations are really what prompted the concept for Elaina's Light. Hats, while very important, are only a part of our concept. I want to make it easier on families who are struggling through any difficult time to find hope in their journey. I also want to bring more awareness to the importance of kindness and how patience, love, acceptance, and sometimes just taking a breath in a moment and finding a will to be kind to strangers can mean so much to someone who is going through more than you know. This is how I came up with the idea to create various scholarships for families struggling through what seem like insurmountable circumstances. These scholarships would pay for tuition at their child's current preschool, daycare, or private school. It alleviates some pressure on the family and gives kindness where it otherwise would not have been. Additionally, I wanted to create kindness cards to be circulated throughout the community. These cards would accompany a random act of kindness and bring hope to strangers as well as lead them on the path to more kind doings. 

After explaining this concept to Matt. I immediately started putting it into motion. Insert, Trudi. In addition to being a friend, Trudi is also the director of our daughters preschool. This is a safe haven for my child and place that our family feels at home. I knew that I wanted a new family each year from this school to be a yearly recipient of an Elaina's Light scholarship. Trudi was excited and she had already been concocting a plan to fundraise for our family with T-Shirts in honor of Elaina. She used her amazing and talented contacts to design shirts and give Elaina's Light the logo we use today. I did not want to stop at one school, though! I decided I also wanted to work with Mercy where Elaina's medical team was to bless one family affected by anencephaly each year with a scholarship to offset their living children's educational expenses as well. Our nurse coordinator and one of our doctors were just as excited as we were! I am in hopes that our fundraising efforts each year are prosperous and assist us in providing more scholarships throughout our area. In October, when I was 28 weeks pregnant with Elaina I officially registered Elaina's Light as a nonprofit with the state of Missouri and with the IRS. It is official! I am so excited to provide scholarships, hats, and kindness to those in need and all in Elaina's name. 

Fundraising is the only way to make Elaina's Light work to its full potential. Through our various fundraising endeavors and through the generous donations from others we will be able to:

-provide scholarships to families moving through a difficult time. (death in the family, child loss, severe illness, severe injury, etc.)

-provide childcare scholarships for families affected by the life limiting diagnosis of anencephaly

-provide hats for babies born with anencephaly

-circulate kindness in an effort to provide hope to those who need it in the community