Turkey Smurkey, You gotta read this….

While most of the women in my family were planning another outrageous Thanksgiving dinner and keeping up with work, kids’ sports, and every other regular job mothers have, my granddaughter, Lily, had gone undercover.

Her high school curriculum includes building philanthropic values in the eleventh grade, and she participated in a bake sale fundraiser for the local EMS as her assignment. After baking for a few days, the project entailed negotiating a table placement with a local bagel shop (Go - Mendham Bagels!) and then engaging with passersby who vastly prefer to ignore solicitation. But they prevailed and raised a mighty sum.

Lily has excellent organizational skills and wanted to do more. You see, she’s grown up surrounded by healthcare professionals as well as serious disease. Her mother has fought breast cancer twice, and I, her Bubbie, have had both breast and ovarian cancers – all linked to a BRCA1 genetic mutation. In 2010, I launched the Mathilda Fund in honor of my great-grandmother to support the Ovarian Cancer Research Alliance (OCRA). Although Mathilda has her own front-facing account, every dollar raised is passed through a back door into the OCRA. Lily has seen many family and friends make contributions to a fund that has now raised over $82,000.

She decided, without telling any family adults, to arrange her own fundraiser, another bake sale, outside on the freezing sidewalk, in front of the same bagel shop – bless their sweet bagels. Her younger cousin, Ava (7th grade), an avid cookie baker, joined in, and they baked for hours to have enough product. They set up shop the weekend before Thanksgiving. The two girls and Lily's stepbrother sat there selling baked goods half the day.

Long story short, in three hours, they sold out of cookies, cupcakes, and brownies, raising $1025! They engaged customers by sharing my sixteen-year treatment and writing journey. They talked about hope, my decision to write historical fiction, exploring cancer treatments from 1880 onward, and their concern for women facing breast and ovarian cancer today. Such big, heavy topics for girls only on the cusp of womanhood.

I can’t think of a better, more soulful way to remind you to make THE MATHILDA FUND one of your annual donations. On behalf of the future women and current women in your lives, please use the link below.

XO Jane

DONATE NOW