Just under 2 days until the start of the 2007 Dublin City Marathon. I arrived in Dublin on Friday evening and spent a day getting to know the city. The city is beautiful and the people are very friendly. My bags are lost in transit (the airline promised they would arrive Saturday night or Sunday morning) but aside from that all systems are go. I spent today walking the city with my camera a bit more than I was planning and enjoying every minute of it. I plan do stick to the bus tomorrow when I go out in order to give my legs a rest. Hopefully the site seeing won't tire my legs out too much for Monday's race.
Thanks to everyone who has donated! I started this by agreeing to raise $4000 and raised my fundraising to an ambitious $10,000 knowing that it would be difficult but wanting to raise as much as I could for the low-income individuals and families served by MBHP. To date, I have raised just over $6000 and could not have done so without your support.
By the end of Monday's marathon, I will have completed (in 16 weeks):
450 miles (half pushing a 50lb babystroller)
75 miles of roller blading (pushing the stroller)
231 miles of cycling
A week later I will start an 8 day trip to Morocco in order to trek up the highest peak in Northern Africa!
So why on earth would someone do this much exercising in 16 weeks you might be wondering! Many of you have heard about the work I do at MBHP. What many of you may not know is the reason why I do housing and homelessness work. Having a stable roof over my head is a fairly recent development for me. I have spent much of my life worrying about stabilizing my housing and at times have had no where to live. The memory of life on the street and moving from couch to couch if a big part of WHY I work at MBHP.
Like many of our clients, I was not able to stablize my housing without a significant amount of support. MBHP provides not only housing vouchers but also emergency assistance for times of crisis, resources to address jobs, food security, and other critical pieces of the housing stablity puzzle. In addition, MBHP has in recent years been able to send low-income children to camp, music lessons, and other opportunities that would not have been possible without donors like you.
I would like to ask you to become an active participant in keeping a family or individual housed TODAY! You have the power to help prevent someone from being homeless or at risk of homelessness. $5, $25, $100 -- or more can take a step toward keeping someone housed. Think about it..if someone like you hadn't helped me, we wouldn't know each other would we? Click on Sponsor Me now and make a donation...When I was trying to stablize my life, someone stepped in to help - today, you have the chance to be the one who helps to stabilize a housing situation.