The totals!

We had a great time at the holiday fest and enjoyed meeting everyone! We made $195 selling candles and another $230 in donations. The winner of our free give a way was Sue Sargent and she graciously donated her prize back to Doug’s Journey to Sight. We would like to thank everyone that volunteered their time to help us on Main Street. And a special thanks to Joanne Mortimer for donating us a spot. Also thanks to everyone who came to support Doug! It means a lot!

As our team managed the table at Holiday fest we had the opportunity to attend a ‘Holiday Helpers’ fundraiser. Holiday Helpers raises money for families in need during the holiday season. At this fundraiser we were generously donated the profits made by the Philly fanatic. We would like to thank Dan Flagg and his crew, the Holiday helpers, for helping us raise another $1300 towards Doug’s Journey to sight!

Our Own Candle Company: After adding up all the candles we sold 275 candles! Way to go Sellers! We made a whopping $1,584 in profit to Doug’s Journey to Sight! Thank you to everyone who helped us sell all these candles! The order has been placed and everyone will be receiving their orders no later than December 20th.

If you add all 3 of those totals we made a complete earning of $3309! It means so much to all of us at Doug’s Journey to Sight to know how many people support us. There are no words to say how thankful we are for the help we have been receiving!

WRITE IT ON YOUR CALENDAR!!!
Bowling for Doug; @Laurel Lanes Bowling Alley; January 14, 2012; 12pm-2pm
Tickets are on sale now!
$20- Admits 1 person; 2 hours of bowling; free shoe rental; soda and pizza.
$100- Admits up to 6 people; 2 hours of bowling; free shoe rental up to 6 pairs; 3 pitchers of soda and 1 pizza pie.

We will try to keep groups together but may not be able to in order to fill spaces for bowling. To ensure you stay together as a group think about getting a whole lane, up to 6 people per lane! The more Lanes we fill the more money that goes to Doug. Invite your Friends and family. Enjoy an afternoon of bowling and while you do Doug’s Journey makes $40% profit!
We will also be having a bake sale along with selling T-Shirts and support bracelets! Images of them are soon to come!

Thirty-One Gifts: We are now holding a 31 bag fundraiser until January 15, 2012. We are going to be selling Thermal tote bags $23-$26. There is a variety of different pattern swatches and free Personalization! They are great for the kid’s lunch boxes, or to pack snacks for a long car ride! Please contact us if you would like to purchase some!


All about Dougie!
So there hasn’t been much going on in the Dillon house but fundraising. Doug enjoyed himself on Main Street for holiday fest and loved all the attention. I think his favorite part was the Christmas Carolers who stopped and sang us a beautiful song! He also had a blast at the holiday helper’s fundraiser and danced himself to sleep! He was very interested in the colorful lights shining around from the dance floors lighting.
He has such a goofy personality and shows it off more and more! Lately he has been using his please and thank you hand signs so well during meal time. We have also been having lots of play dates with his friend Caleb, and they enjoy chewing on blocks together! Even though they are a little young to really sit down and play together its fun to see them interact. Caleb quickly realized Doug needed a tap to receive toys from him and they pass things back and forth all the time! They also pet each other on occasion, it is too funny! Time really needs to slow down! He is growing way to fast!

VOLUNTEER WORK:
If you would like to help Doug’s Journey to Sight look at the following list of things we will need help with for upcoming events! You can e-mail us at DougsJourney2012@yahoo.com and let us know how you would like to help!

• Bakers: If you would like to donate a baked good for our bake sale on January 14th please contact us right away! We will need all baked goods by January 13th the latest.
• Sellers for our 31 fundraiser! If you think you can help us please do! The more we sell the more profit we make!
• Want to help sell tickets for our bowling fundraiser?
• We are looking for sponsors for Shirts and Flyers. If you want to help Doug and also get your business name around let us know and we can work something out!

Holiday Fest!

Boy does time go by fast. We have 9 months till Doug’s 2nd birthday, so we have to get the ball rolling!

Please Join us for our first Fundraiser event at Maple Shades Holiday fest on December 2nd, from 6-9! Come see us there! We did so well with our candle sales that we had the opportunity to purchase some candles of our own to sell. We will also have our ‘Doug’s Journey to Sight’ bracelets to purchase as well. And best of all we will be having a free Give a Way! Come enter your name at a chance to win a $25 Panera Bread gift card for FREE!!! Donations are appreciated. We would like to thank Joanne Mortimer for getting us a table at holiday fest, and also Panera Bread for their prize donation! We are so thankful to have this opportunity!

After the hustle and bustle of the holidays it’s always nice to get out and have some fun! With that said we would like to invite you to our next fundraiser event at Laurel Lanes Bowling Alley on Saturday January 14th, from 12pm-2pm. Tickets are $20 a person, 6 people per lane. This includes 2 hours of bowling and shoe rental per person, while each lane gets 1 pizza pie, and 3 pitchers of Soda. We can try to keep everyone in a group but if you have less then 6 people you may be split up to efficiently fill our lanes. If you want to be kept together you can purchase a whole lane to yourselves for $100, still including 2 hours bowling and shoe rental per person, and pizza and soda for that lane as well. We will also be selling baked goods, t- shirts, and our support bracelets. Please come support Doug’s Cause!

Calling all bakers! We are looking for people to donate baked goods for the bake sale, if your interested please contact us via e-mail @ DougsJourney2012@yahoo.com.

Those of you who ordered Yankee Candles can stop holding your breath! They have come in and all sellers have their products to hand out so if you are looking for your goodies you know who to call! After all was said and done we made $100 profit through Yankee! I would like to thank all my sellers for helping us out and all of the people who purchased as well! Every thing we make is a step closer to our goal!

We are heading in the right direction! Hope to see you guys tomorrow night!

‘Representin’ the Foundation!

We got ourselves some awareness bracelets! I’m so excited to get them in! They are green and say ‘Doug’s Journey to Sight’ on each one. If you want to make people aware of our foundation and also help Doug get to China you can buy one for yourself. They are $2 each and we have adult and kid sizes. Just Contact us at DougsJourney2012@yahoo.com.

We also want to let everyone know to keep their calendars clear December 2 and head on over to Maple Shades Holiday Fest. Thanks to Joanne Mortimer we have been donated a table spot on main street that night. Please join us and the rest of Main Street for fun times and you might get a chance to meet the star of our foundation, Doug, himself! That is worth the whole trip, ask anyone who knows him!

CANDLES! If you are interested in purchasing Yankee candles get your orders in now! Sale ends November 10th. If you miss that don’t be upset because we will still be selling Our own Candle Co. candles until November 25. 40% profit goes to us from Yankee and 50% from Our Own Candle Co.

CLOTHES DRIVE! I know I said it last week but I want to make sure everyone knows. We will be collecting any clothes or soft house hold items until May 2012. We are currently looking for a location people can conveniently drop their bag off at, but as of now we are collecting as much as we can without a ‘drop off’ area. So far, so Good! When an official spot is chosen we will let you know! If anyone has an idea for a spot please let us know!


Now about Doug!
Doug had an AWESOME Halloween this year. We started our day with a play date and ended it with trick or treating and candy! He was a Gorilla and our dog was a banana and it was the cutest thing EVER! All in all it was a fun time!

Thanks to everyone for the support and help we have been receiving! We get closer and closer to our goal all the time and hopefully we can get the ball rolling on more fundraisers so we can really see that ‘total earned amount’ go up all the way to 30,000!

Check out some of our halloween fun!:

Busy Busy Busy

Wow have we been busy! Lots of stuff going on recently!

We are still selling candles and are doing great! The candle fundraising ends Nov 25, so please get your orders in. It is a great inexpensive Holiday gift that also donates to baby Dougie at the same time! 50% of all Our Own Candle Co. profits go to Doug’s Foundation, and 40% of all Yankee candle profits do as well! Every Candle adds up and brings us a step closer to our goal!

We also started another fundraiser and are collecting any clothing you may be getting rid of. With this fundraiser we will be getting $0.15 a pound. But we’re sure it will add up super fast! We are looking for any soft house hold items, ex: clothes, pillows, stuffed animals, soft purses, blankets etc. If you would like to donate any contact us at DougsJourney2012@yahoo.com. This will be going on till around May of 2012. We want to try and collect as many as we can! Spread the word!

Doug is really getting around. He is officially crawling now. He always could crawl but would never continuously crawl to a direct spot. He now flops down on his hiney and crawls exactly where he wants to be! Today he even followed us all the way to our bed room and didn’t hit any road blocks! He has made a little ‘home’ map in his brain and fine tunes it everyday. We couldn’t believe he knew how to get to the hall way and exactly what direction to go to get to it from the highchair! From there he followed our voices and was standing himself up at the bed in less than 5 minutes! What a BIG BOY!
This weekend we got a chance to go Pumpkin Picking at Johnsons Farm. We had a blast, Doug went on his first hayride and of course threw his hat right off the side, then we helped him pick a little pumpkin just his size and took a million pictures!
He tried a cider donut and it was the first time in at least a month he didn’t spit food out immediately after put in his mouth, we’re guessing he enjoyed the sugar on it! We then had a lovely lunch and finished up our morning/afternoon day with a walk. Doug sat in his wagon of course… Sometimes I wish I had someone to pull push or hold me all day! All in all it was a perfect day. Although we went “pumpkin picking” last year with him he was only 2 months at the time so this was really his first year pumpkin picking, or participating should we say, hehe. Ohh and for those who are worried about his $20 fitted Phillies hat, we picked it up in the lost and found and it thankfully wasn’t ran over by a different tractor.

In the words of Dory, "Just keep swimming!"

We’re so thankful for all the support and help we have been receiving! The link is everywhere and more and more people share it! We have only been fundraising going on 3 weeks now and we broke our first thousand! YAY!!! You can also find our cause page on facebook: Dougs Journey to Sight

We are starting our first official fundraiser... We will be selling Yankee candles, and 40% of the profit goes to Doug’s Journey to Sight. Unfortunately as of now, there is no way to make sales over the internet, so please contact us if you would like to purchase some: Coleyni85@comcast.net. Don’t forget Christmas is coming up. This can be a great way to knock some people off that list and also help Doug at the same time!

We are welcome to any new ideas anyone has come up with. A few friends have started their own little ways to help us earn donations which we LOVE! If you know of or are thinking of anything to help us out, just let us know and we will look into it.
We are still looking for prize donations to go toward an auction we plan on having at a beef and beer. No dates are set as we want to get everything thing in place before we start selling tickets! Keep us in mind if you’re thinking about going!

We are also trying to find a calendar gadget that will allow us to add events, but are having trouble finding one. Until then you will just have to wait. As of right now we don’t have any fundraiser events coming up besides the Yankee candle sales.

This last week has gone by super fast. With the weather going back and forth Dougie hasn’t been feeling the best, but we do try and take advantage of the nicer weather and get out. We like long walk (well mom does) and LOVE the swings. We always stop at the park after a walk if there is enough time. Those of you who don’t know, Doug has an Occupational Therapist (an amazing occupational therapist might I add) that comes every other week through Early intervention. She came this week along with a lovely lady from Commission of the blind. These 2 work with both Doug and mom to make sure Doug keeps up with all his milestones. We’ve said it tons of times, but Doug is truly amazing and is currently right where he should be with his milestones.
This time we worked on putting things in a container and hearing the sound it makes… When we’re showed little things like this it really puts things into prospective. I (mom) personally am a very visual learner and to think of trying to learn everything without sight almost seems impossible, but Doug proves me wrong every day. He knows right where he shouldn’t be playing and exactly what I wouldn’t want him to do... along with all the good things he knows too, hehe.

The more he does the more we want to teach him! And he soaks it all up like a sponge. We’ve been working on body parts and Doug now knows where his heart, shoulders, and toes are! He also likes to mark his ‘patty cake’ with a D and put it in the oven for ‘me, mE, ME! He is such a smart little boy! We could seriously go on for hours and hours! Hahaha

"To live you have to experiment, to have the ability to experiment you have to have confidence, to have confidence you have to be loved, to be loved you have to love."
~ Unknown

To be 'Accepted'

This weeks BIG NEWS…. We received a letter saying Doug was ACCEPTED FOR TREATMENTS!!!!! This is sooo super exciting! We got some more accurate amounts about the cost and just to give everyone a little knowledge of where the money is going, total it looks like its going to be right around 30,000. There are a couple packages we can choose from that range from 6-8 injections and 15-21 Days in China. After a little discussing we figured if we going to go there, we might as well go for the most treatments we can! So it would be at least 21 days in china and 8 injections. We can also decided to ‘add on’ injections while we are there if we have the funds to afford it.

We want to make sure everyone understands this is something we might need to do several times… You have to realize that these treatments are first going to work on the inside wiring, the optic nerve . Optic nerves have about 1.1 million nerve cells each and we do not know what specific nerves are/aren’t developed. As we said before Doug currently responds to light a lot! His pupils dilate according to the light in the room just like they should which is already AMAZING NEWS! With each treatment you can get results up to about a year after. We could see no results until 8 months from being back or maybe see results with the first treatment. It works differently with each person. We can only hope things work for the best and he could be reaching out for toys before we come home! We will continue to raise money to keep going back as we need to until there are no other possible results he could have! We want him to have x-ray vision when we are done, hehe!

Dougie keeps heading in the right direction. The other day he caught glimpse of a shadow on the wall from the ceiling fan, then tried to reach out and grab what he was seeing. We couldn’t believe our eyes, even started to cry a bit! Just another example of how much we don’t know, when it comes to his vision! He recently started with the, I get into every, and ANY, thing I can get my hands on! He is moving all over the house and we love love love it. Though it will sure get super old in a week! Haha

We want to thank everyone who is helping us get the word out, and also specifically thank those who have gone above and beyond, and started their own little way to help us get as much money donated as they can! Words can’t describe how much it really means to us!

THANKYOU THANKYOU THANKYOU THANKYOU!

-The Dillons

Spread the Word!!!

The word is getting around! The more we share it the more people read about it! AND, if you haven’t noticed we are getting closer to our goal every day! Most of our advertising is via face book, as that’s our main communication to the world (haha), but also word of mouth. Those who have other networks are WELCOME and ENCOURAGED to share it any other way.

Some people have questioned the process of which stem cells are retrieved. We just want to clarify that this facility uses adult stem cells only and no embryonic cells will be used during any treatments PERIOD! If any one has any questions we are more than willing to try and answer all of them. There is also some links on the left hand side of the blog under the ‘Check this Out’ section that might help too. One goes specifically to the facility that will work with us (Beike Biotech), and also some face book pages there as well that you can check out.

We are now in the process of getting all medical records sent out to the doctors in China! This excites me greatly! Each step forward is a step closer to improvement in our son’s sight! We are also now planning our first fundraiser event, a Beef and Beer, and are looking for donations of any kind for prize baskets that will be auctioned off. Also, if any one knows of a good place that might help us with the event or if you feel you would like to be a big part of the planning and setting up just let us know. There will be plenty of things that will need to be done including, selling tickets, getting permits together, and many other things. You can contact us at coleyni85@comcast.net or Dubdilla@yahoo.com and we will let you know how you can help! More information will be posted about when and where it will be held when we get it all worked out.

While all that is going on…..

Doug is now officially completely off bottles! Mom stopped him cold turkey and he had absolutely no problem with it! He is pulling himself up any where he can and rolls around to get from place to place. We had the opportunity to go to the zoo with some family and had a blast! Doug got to play with a little bunny and loved his fur... he did so well with his ‘gentle hands,’ and we also marched in the parade to stand up for extinction… Ok so Dougie was strolled and I walked, but we were still in the parade! All in all this has been a very busy, productive, fun week, with many more like this to come!

Keep up all the great work with sharing our page. We are so thankful for any and every help we get!
-The Dillon’s

First things First!

I thought it would be nice to fill everyone in on where Doug is now with his ONH and how he is progressing even with this little set back...

After Doug was diagnosed with ONH, we had to go through a series of tests and blood work, and also meet multiple specialist doctors, to see if anything else was affected during the development of his brain. Some children with ONH have other issues, such as diabetes isopodous, or issues with the pituitary gland. We took Doug for an MRI when he was about 3 months old. His Neurologist (doctor specifying in brain development), and Neuro Ophthalmologist (eye doctor) went over the results and everything looked GREAT! He is showing no signs of any other issues at this time, although as he gets older we will need to keep checking that everything continues in this direction.

Doug himself doesn’t let any of this hold him back. He is meeting all milestones and is on his way to running a-muck around our house. He is such a smart little man and soaks information up like a sponge. He loves anything that has to do with rocking bouncing or jumping and, unless teething is involved, he is one of the happiest and cutest little babies we have ever met (This opinion might be a little biased!:D)! Doug enojoys playing with his voice and especially likes to call (more like scream) for his ‘dada’. Even without stem cell treatment, he gives us no reason to believe that his life will be any less than normal.

All the fundraiser planning starts now! We’ve got a million ideas, but are open to any others. The form to be 'accepted' for treatment was filled out and sent in this week, and we recently got a tax credit number. Next is making an account with PNC. With this account we can then open a link to pay pal for those who would like to donate. Until then, please contact us through e-mail at: Dubdilla@yahoo.com

We will keep you updated on the fundraisers we are working on, and will include a calendar of set dates. We are also in the process of trying to figure out how to attach a meter for the amount that has been raised and some other fun things to follow as well.

We just want to thank everyone now for the support we already have and we are only just starting! It’s good to know there are so many who care for us and our family, and especially our son Doug!

Thankyou thankyou thankyou! :) -The Dillon’s<3