"The Plunge"

Recently my brother and I were nominated to do the “Polar Plunge” for cancer research. You’ve seen all the videos out there of people doing it, and a lot of them are super creative and I believe that even though a bunch of people aren’t living up to the rule of, pay $10 to any charity after you’ve completed it and $100 if you choose not to complete it, a lot of people also are doing it right, and those doing it wrong may still be nominating more people who do actually donate so overall I’d say it’s quite literally a pretty cool thing.

But there are some naysayers out there that think that jumping into the cold water this time of year is just a stupid thing to do and dangerous besides. It is true that the cold water does send a shock to the body right away and perhaps if you were dumb enough to jump into extremely deep water and have to swim quite a ways to get to shore, you might run into a problem…but it’s not called the “Polar Swim,” you plunge, then you get the heck out of there!

Like any activity you just have to be smart about how you do it. We’re Minnesotans. Fire Departments, Police Departments, and other organizations of the like do this all of the time even mid-winter for fundraisers. They’ll cut a hole in the ice to do the “Polar Plunge,” so although the ice has recently gone off the rivers and lakes around here; it’s still warmer water than has been jumped in for this activity before.

Just be smart. Have warm clothes ready as well as a towel and get some place warm right away…then make your donation! This is one of the awesome things about social media; people can spread a little fundraiser like this to so many people and can do it quickly! The challenge states that you have 24 hours to complete it, could you imagine if this was attempted using USPS mail rather than Facebook, Twitter, email or whatever?

So the money raised through this fundraiser could not have been done without these “terrible” social media sites. They’re not the devil and they aren’t stupid, they can be, but if used properly they can be an awesome tool to reach old friends, meet new ones, and even raise a ton of money for cancer research. So kudos to whoever started this fundraiser, you’re doing the internet right!

Here’s my “Polar Plunge” as well as my brother's!

Jason

Ryan

(I'm not quite up-to-date with my tech skills...plus it took forever to upload these just to Facebook!)

 

On the “Plunge” note, I’d also like to drop a quick line to four awesome people getting married today; Alex French & Andrea Malmberg and Kurt Philion & Sara Dally. I’ve only recently met Sara but she seems like a pretty awesome person and must be since a guy like Kurt chose her to become his wife. Kurt is one of my greatest friends, a guy who I’ve known just about my entire life and have watched become the outstanding man that he is today.

Alex is a Cromwellian. One of the many people we’ve had the privilege of meeting and becoming friends with due to the fact that our sister once taught there and that our college roommate, Danny Dahl, is from there. He’s one of those friends that live a pretty significant distance from us now but one that you always know you’ll be friends with, no matter what! A few years ago this Andrea chica interrupted our bromance and although it was pretty tough to watch the love of my life find a girl…it quickly became apparent that she wasn’t just “a girl,” but “the girl.” Andrea is awesome. She’s a lot of fun, she’s caring, funny, easy going, and the absolute perfect girl for Alex…all wrapped up in a neat little carry-on size!

Both couples are entering into a new chapter in their lives and although one wedding is in Brainerd and the other is in Foston/Mahnomen…we’re going to attempt to make both. Some people are just worth the work, and I can’t wait to share in their special day with both couples!

Congratulations guys! I can’t wait to dance on you…

Hoops for Hope

I think I may have a skewed sense of humanity…It may be because of the people I have in my life but every time I read something online that’s positive and it says, “Faith in humanity restored,” I think to myself…I never lost my faith in humanity…

Now maybe I’m in the minority here, and I have certainly encountered my share of mean, heartless, and downright nasty people, but I’d like to think that they make up the minority of people in this world. I’d like to think that when most of us are given the opportunity to do what is right and what is nice…I’d like to think that most of us would do that, I know most of the people I consider friends would. Now having said that, I’d like to emphasize my point by giving you all a look into the 9^th Annual Diane Brumwell Memorial “Hoops for Hope.”

Hoops for Hope is the basketball tournament my family holds every year to raise funds for cancer research through The V Foundation. The first year of the tournament, our mother was still alive and helped us to plan it after my brother and I had participated in a basketball tournament also used to raise funds for The American Cancer Society (the first two years of the tournament we were also members of the ACS).

The first tournament was put together in under a month and consisted of four teams. The local bus drivers, our rag tag group, and two other teams of really good friends who just wanted to play basketball and also help out some of their friends. Together we were able to raise $4,500 and we were pretty pumped. We couldn’t get over the generosity of people to just give us $4,500 for our cause!

That summer we lost our mother to ovarian cancer, but she was truly an amazing person, and without her there certainly was a giant hole in all of our hearts and an overall empty feeling that may never be completely filled again. She was certainly the reason that our family tends to want to see the good in people rather than the bad. We give people a lot of chances and tend to forgive easier than we should sometimes, but I’d rather think the best of someone than the worst. If they prove you wrong, that’s their fault and something that they have to live with.

After our mom passed we decided to keep the fundraiser going. It served two purposes; first, it helped us to keep the memory of our mom alive and served to help us to fill a void that had been placed in us by losing her, secondly, we knew the pain that losing someone to cancer could cause and we really didn’t want anyone else to have to go through that same pain. We knew that we wouldn’t cure cancer overnight and that many more would lose the battle until we do find a cure…but we wanted to instill a feeling of hope…we wanted to find a cure, and we wanted people to know that although cancer took our mom, it couldn’t take her spirit and that the only thing cancer did do was enlist some pretty pissed off people in the fight against it.

The second tournament raised over $9,000 and we had even more awesome people join us in the fight. We had doubled our funds in just one year and we began to see that there were a ton of people out there that had our same drive to win this battle. We also started looking into the disbursement of funds through the ACS and although they were doing a lot of great things, they were also paying their administration with the funds being donated to them. We decided to look for other organizations to donate the money to after we discovered (at the time of the switch) that the ACS was designating 18% of the funds to administration and 15% to research. The rest was divvied up amongst several other positive programs, but after losing our mom to cancer we wanted a cure which meant we needed the money to go to research. That’s when we found The V Foundation for Cancer Research.

The V Foundation was set up by the Jim Valvano family and ESPN. An endowment fund was set up right away as well to ensure that every cent that was donated to the organization could be used directly in the research and discovery of a cure. Jim Valvano’s story and love of life closely mirrored that of our mother’s and his sentiment that the money raised through this organization may not save his life, but may save his children’s lives or someone that you love, was exactly why we wanted to keep our tournament going. We had found the organization that we strongly believe will play a major factor in the development of the cure for cancer. It hasn’t happened yet but the more we spread the word about this organization and the more money we can get in the right hands (theirs) the better chance we stand of an end to cancer…and the rest of this blog is going to be about the amazing people that we know that will be a part of that…

Let’s fast forward now to this year…

Six years ago was a huge year for us because we went over the $100,000 mark for funds raised through the tournament, which means that every year we had kept growing the amount brought in. Sure we had a couple of crappy teams who didn’t grasp the purpose of the tournament and wouldn’t raise any funds and then would come and complain about this or that the whole time…but those individuals were asked to not come back until they got what the tournament was about. So six years it took us to get to $100,000, not so bad right?! Well this year was our 9^th year of the tournament (just three more years have passed since going over $100,000) and something unbelievable happened…we just went over $200,000 for the life of the tournament!

The four teams that got together and started this tournament nine years ago still play a huge role in the tournament every year, and although some of the people don’t play anymore, they’ll forever be part of this amazingly heartwarming event. The number of people we all consider friends has grown significantly and even more impressive are the people you consider more than friends, at this point they’re just family.

What started as four men’s teams getting together has now turned into 14 Men’s Teams and 6 Women’s teams, and although you still have a team or two that doesn’t raise significant funds, the top ten teams in this year’s tournament raised over $24,000! We get those bottom 10 to really grab ahold of their potential and we’ll do $50,000 no problem!

From the start of the tournament Ryan and I decided that the thing people should really be competing for was how much money they could raise, so we created a “HOPE” Award which goes to the team that raises the most money. A few years ago we really started to see that individuals on teams were kicking butt getting donations and some of the other members wouldn’t even donate or wouldn’t donate much at all, so we talked it out and decided to up the “HOPE” Award idea and created an All-Tournament Team based on the top five individual fund raisers for the tournament too.

The “HOPE” Award didn’t have as much of an impact as the All-Tournament Team until this year. The fact that people really seem to be competing now, off the court, to make the All-Tournament Team is exactly what we hoped for! There are two individuals who have really made a competition out of who’s going home with the MVP, Corey Hanson, and Kyle Simonson, and the results have been absolutely spectacular! This year alone, the two of them raised over $6,000 together…in case you need a reminder, that’s over $1,500 more than our whole first tournament between two individuals! If you add in the rest of this year’s All-Tournament Team (6 people this year) the group raised about $10,000! SIX PEOPLE!!!

I posted in our Facebook Group the rest of the totals for the All-Tournament Team Members but here’s a run-down of both the All-Tournament Team and “HOPE” Award finalists:

All-Tournament Team

1.       Kyle Simonson - $3,230

2.       Corey Hanson - $2,853

3.       Allison Hong - $1,285

4.       Ben Swendra - $1,059

5.       Kristen Weiss - $707

6.       Nicole Hoefs - $695

“HOPE” Award Standings

1.       9^th Annual Tornado Drill - $8,322 (with more coming in!)

2.       The Rainbow - $5,180

3.       Make a sWish - $2,806

4.       Mary Ann’s Merry Maidens - $2,070

5.       Jagol Honey – $1,507

6.       Wilcox Champs - $1,026

It’s important to note that this was “Make a sWish’s” first year participating in the tournament and two of its members, Allison Hong and Nicole Hoefs, were both on the All-Tournament Team! Expect even better things out of these awesome girls in the future! I’m thinking there will at least be a three way battle for that MVP next year, which is exactly what we want and need!!!

So the people that are playing in the tournament are really coming together to raise a bunch of money for cancer research, that was always our goal when we started the tournament and we’re very happy and proud that every year the players keep surprising us…but there’s an element we never really saw coming that makes us even more proud, and it makes us feel pretty lucky to have such amazing friends/family, and that is the people who don’t play who are busting their brains, backs, etc. to come up with more ways to raise money!

One of the players in the tournament works at a bar in Fargo/Moorhead and was asking for ways to raise more money and I suggested that he talk to some of the waitresses about possibly donating a portion or all of their tips for one night, and I’m pretty sure he thought I was crazy. A few years ago, I never would have thought about this either…but then an awesome friend of ours contacted us and told us that she was going to do just that for us. She has now inspired a few other individuals to do the same thing and I think in total they raised over $500 for cancer research together!

But that’s just one way that people are coming together to join Hoops for Hope in our quest for a cure. We have a couple amazing people who have joined us and take pictures every year as well as sell raffle tickets, sign people up for Be The Match, and do whatever else we ask, or even don’t ask them to do. One of them has now fought her own battle with cancer and has emerged victorious! The more money we raise collectively, the more stories like hers we’ll have to tell.

Another amazing individual undertakes our “Locks of Love” donation every year, which is a pretty big deal to me as I donated my hair our very first year of the tournament…I am a bit of a hippy at heart and 9 years ago I had the hair to go with that persona! But as you hear a lot of people do, I wanted to shave my head to show solidarity with my mom who had lost her hair when she started chemotherapy and also…she hated my long hair! But I was able to donate, and now my friend continues that tradition and was even able to have a stylist donate her time this year to cut hair at the tournament and got five donations as well!

That same person found a partner in crime this year and together they did a bake sale, on top of baking lots of goodies for our concession stand, they organized a head shaving fund raiser out at our annual social and one of their children even emptied out his piggy bank and donated it all to Hoops for Hope! Together I think the pair raised about $1,000 for the cause, and everything they did was completely on their own accord.

Another awesome person that started out as a frequent tuber and has become like family, now sells Scentsy and holds an online party as well as sells at the tournament and donates all of those profits to the cause! This year between the online party, sales at Hoops for Hope, and a Scentsy basket that she donated for the silent auction, she raised over $300!

One other individual I’d like to single out is Gary Gruhot. I’m guessing a lot of people reading this don’t know who he is but I’d like to tell you a little about what he’s done the last couple of years…First of all he won a .22 rifle last year at some other event and donated it to our cause and we were able, with the help of our awesome raffle ticket sellers, to raise over $500 from that item alone, that doesn’t even count the money he personally donates. This year he donated the awesome generator that we had on auction which is worth about $3,950…and I’m pretty sure we also fleeced him for donations and raffle tickets as well!

Kind of an unsung hero in the whole tournament is the Lafayette High School as well. Every single year we go to the school and ask if it is alright if we use the gym for the event and every single year they don’t even bat an eye. Even better, they allow us to use the facility for free. It’s very important for us to be able to save money wherever we can when we organize Hoops for Hope every year because the more we save, the more we can put towards the cause. Without the wonderful Red Lake Falls School District #630 we never would have been able to accomplish all that we have together.

Now the organizations that have really gotten involved are also a huge part of the success of the event and although there are far too many to thank personally, I’d like to say that just about every business in Red Lake Falls has donated and continues to donate to Hoops for Hope every year. When we got out and get our donations, we don’t tend to hear, “no” a lot anymore, which is pretty amazing. When we go through the checks we also notice that so many businesses are really getting on board with the fund raiser from everywhere and we can’t thank them enough, or the individuals who seek out these donations. You’re all doing an amazing job and we know you’ll keep making us prouder and prouder each and every year!

Other organizations in Red Lake Falls which have truly been fantastic partners, really, are; TnJ’s Bar and Grill who throw our “Thank You Social” every year as well as does a Spaghetti dinner on Friday and Saturday nights to raise more money for the cause, The Lions Club of RLF which each year hosts a Sunday breakfast and has been so kind to donate the proceeds of this event to us, The Red Lake Falls Gazette who really did an awesome job in helping us promote the event this year and got the word out about the amazing things the Hoops for Hope community has done, SuperOne and Hugo’s for donating buns for our concessions, Asian Foods for donating Hot Dogs, buns, and cash, and Perry Duden Farms for donating all of the beef this year as well!

There are countless individuals, organizations, and groups that have joined together to make Hoops for Hope such a tremendous success every year and I know as soon as I publish this I’m going to say to myself, “How the heck did you forget ____________?!” and I truly hope that you forgive me, but it’s an amazing problem to have that we have so many unbelievable people in our lives that are helping us in our quest to end cancer that we can’t always remember every single person’s individual effort. That sounds kind of crappy to say we could forget something, but really we don’t it’s just that there is so much goodness going through our heads all of the time that it’s nice to have this overflow of goodness and belief in people that things keep popping back into your head at different times!

We’ve mentioned it to a few people now but haven’t really told everyone because we really want to have the money in hand before we were going to make the big announcement but the money that is still coming in is coming in for sure so I think it’s safe to tell everyone that this year’s Hoops for Hope tournament will raise over $40,000…nine years ago that figure was $4,500 and we thought people were pretty amazing then! We keep expecting the funds to level off one of these years, that you can only grow so big…but together we raised over $7,000 more than we had the previous year!

You might not really truly know my family, but by joining us in our quest to end cancer I can truly say that we consider you our friends. We’re also extremely blessed to consider many of you as part of our family, even though we have no blood ties…the bond we share is just as strong and we can never thank you enough.

One quick story then I promise I’m done…Our friend Kyle was getting donations one day at his local watering hole when he met a guy who was actually upset with him for even asking. He said that he had donated all kinds of money over the years to causes like ours and that nothing ever seemed to happen. He had lost three family members to cancer and he was convinced that nothing we do will make a difference. Kyle and he went back and forth throughout the night a few different times with Kyle stating that if he didn’t want to donate he didn’t have to, that he was trying to raise money because his friends had lost their mom and that they didn’t want others to have that same heartache. After about the third or fourth time, the guy comes up and hands Kyle $20. Personally I feel like we can all get that way sometimes, like no matter the effort we put in we just can’t make a difference…but lucky for us we get to hear stories from both sides…

A couple of days after the tournament we received a letter from one of our childhood friends/neighbors. The message read: “What an awesome cause that Hoops for Hope is! Your mom would be so proud of you! My father-in-law was recently diagnosed with cancer. They believe it was caught early. It was a reminder to me how important research is and through your efforts and others he will survive.”

I hope the awesome person who sent this as well as a huge donation, doesn’t mind that I’m posting this, but I think that it’s an important reminder to everyone that together we are making a difference. We certainly still have those stories of heartache and loss every year, but we’re getting more and more stories of survival and triumph and I know our family strongly believes that its due to the amazing people who have truly made Hoops for Hope their own. Our friends, family, and future friends that will continue to team up until we find an end to this disease.

We can’t thank you all enough for everything that you do. Without all of you that hole that was left in our hearts when we lost our mom would still be there. We can never replace the amazing person that we lost to cancer, but having the amazing people in our lives that we now have we feel like her life is serving an even greater purpose. If you’ve lost someone to this disease or know someone that is battling it and have joined us in our cause I hope that you know that your loved one and you are now serving a greater purpose as well. Together we will find a cure and we will see an end to cancer! In the immortal words of Jim Valvano, “Don’t Give Up…Don’t Ever Give Up!!!”

If you need it…I hope this restores your faith in humanity, but more likely, I hope it serves as a reminder of the wonderful people in this world, and that more times than not…people truly are awesome!

Thank you so much, we love you all!!!

#route10LL

Each day on my bus I put up a new life lesson on the wall for the kids to read and I encourage them to submit their own to me to put up as well. There are a few students who read them every day and have contributed quite a few themselves and I’d like to think that even if they don’t read them all, and even if they don’t remember these bits of wisdom I’m trying to impart onto them when in a situation that may call for a particular life lesson…at least they know what to expect.

If something happens on the bus and the kids get in trouble for it, I try to seek out a life lesson to post that will be relevant to that situation and explain to the kids that unless we screw up somehow, we generally don’t learn anything, that the important thing is to learn the thing… I’m pretty good at forgiveness, especially with a bunch of little kids who make mistakes and are still trying to test the waters to see what flies and what doesn’t. The fact that they are also turning in life lessons to me makes me think that at least some of them are looking at the situations they may be in a little differently. Instead of saying why me? Now some of them are saying, o.k., this happened, now what can I learn from this? Maybe I’m reading too much into my own ability to reach people but regardless, that’s what I hope for.

So I thought I might start doing something a little different with my blog here. I’m going to let the readers of BDandLL into our #route10LL world and let you see what I’m posting on the walls of the bus each week and maybe share a story or two about each life lesson. They may be from my own experience, or stories our bus talked about dealing with the life lesson, or if it’s one of those times where the lesson was posted because of something the kids had gotten in trouble for, I’ll write about the situation and how I hopefully turned a bad situation into a moment where the kids were able to see how these life lessons can relate directly to them.

Here we go!

“Go to college, stay in school, if they can make penicillin out of moldy bread, they can sure make something out of you.” – Muhammad Ali

Muhammad Ali may have been the most quotable athlete in his prime. The guy had a swagger to him that led you to believe that he was the cockiest person alive. But more than cockiness, he had confidence. He believed in himself and his own abilities, not because he woke up one day with them, but because he worked his ass off to be the best.

He understood the importance of education, but even more than that, our ability to become whatever we want. He wanted to become world champion, and he did. But he wasn’t all about boxing; it wasn’t the only thing that he had in his life. He was always learning and shaping himself into the person that he one day became. He started out as Cassius Clay, found a faith that he truly believed in and became Muhammad Ali. He didn’t change his name because it sounded cooler or was more marketable, he did it because it coincided with his religious beliefs.

He was also a conscientious objector to the war and so refused to fight in it. He was a man who fought for what he believed in, both in and out of the ring and when he draws his last breath, I doubt he’ll look back at his life with any regrets. The point I believe he was making with this quote is that we all start out as something, moldy bread, and we have the ability to become anything we set our mind to, and education is a tool that we can use to reach our fullest potential.

“If wars can be started with lies, they can be stopped by truth.” – Julian Assange

I probably got our blog and my bus on the national watch list just by using this quote but it went with a problem we’ve been having on our bus, and regardless of the fact that all of work will now be monitored, I believe is an awesome quote!

A few of the kids on the bus have a tendency to fib a bit. The best part is that they can be caught in an act and vehemently deny that they were doing it. They’re kids, I get it, but I’d also like them to know that telling the truth is paramount to our relationships. We had a quote last week too, that read: “If you always tell the truth, you don’t have to remember anything.” (Mark Twain). It’s important to me that the kids understand the importance of being trustworthy. I’ve definitely told a lie or two in my day, but I’m pretty terrible at it so for the most part I’ve given it up. When someone asks you a question and you don’t have to hesitate with an answer because the truth is always the truth…that’s a pretty good feeling. It allows you to just be you and if people don’t like it, so what? The people you want in your life should be real, not ones that you have to lie to, to keep in your life. So tell the truth people, as they say, “The truth will set you free!”

“Life isn’t about finding yourself, life is about creating yourself.” – George Bernard Shaw

This is one of my all-time favorite quotes. So often we hear people talk about going to college to find themselves or how they “truly found themselves in: (college, with a person, etc.).” The truth is, college, like Muhammad Ali stated can help to create you into what you will someday become. People can do the same thing. College is cool because it puts you in a situation where you are lumped with like-minded individuals who enjoy a lot of the same things. You have class with people that are going into the field that YOU choose, and others that enjoy the activities that YOU choose to do. But before YOU do all of that, YOU choose which college to attend!

Are you picking up on the theme here (Hint: it has something to do with YOU)?

I believe in people and their ability to do good. You look me up on Facebook and you’ll see that is what I have as my religion, and what is religion if not a mode of faith? My faith is in people, it’s something that was bestowed upon me by my parents and something I’ve turned into one of my defining characteristics. It’s my choice to believe in people and for the most part it has done nothing but make my life more fulfilling, but I didn’t find that belief, I created it by giving everyone a chance to prove me wrong…and although some may work hard at it, for the most part (To Quote a great friend…who stole the quote from Hemmingway for an awesome Pinterest Board) “The World is a fine place, and worth fighting for…” (The rest of the quote goes, “and I’d hate very much to leave it.”) The whole quote is pretty awesome, and when my day does come I’d like to think that people will miss the person I created with my time here. I hope you feel the same way about yourself!

“We must use time wisely and forever realize that the time is always ripe to do right.”

I also like the quote, “Time you enjoyed wasting is not wasted time.” But although this seems like the opposite of the daily life lesson, I’d say it may be right in line. Who gets to say what a wise way to spend our time is? We do!

The quote is more about doing the right thing and living your life to the fullest, and sometimes that means doing stupid things with the people you care the most about. I think the “wasted time” quote goes to show us that you make your own fun, and sometimes making time to waste time is the right thing to do…did I lose you?

There’s been several times when I’ve felt down, or a friend has been feeling down and we get together and often do nothing. We may hang out, watch a flick or maybe go have a drink and although many people may consider this wasted time, it’s time that you spent wasting together and that may make the darkest day seem a little brighter.

But the main reason I put this quote up on Friday on my bus was to prepare the kids for a whole week worth of life lessons from one of my all-time favorite people, Jim Valvano. Next weekend we kick off our 9^th Annual Diane Brumwell Memorial “Hoops for Hope” Basketball tournament and the whole thought behind the tourney and how The V Foundation for Cancer Research works lies within this quote.

When our mother was going through a reoccurrence of ovarian cancer we decided that we needed to do more to try and find a cure for cancer so we put together a basketball fundraiser to try and do just that. We raised $4,500 in our first year but later that summer our mother lost her battle. We continued the tournament in her name because we felt like it’s what she would have wanted…then we found The V Foundation, and watched Jim Valvano’s ESPY speech and saw our mom in Jimmy V and knew that this was the organization that would someday make the difference, and we wanted to be a part of it.

 

The message of both organizations could just as well be the above quote, but I hope that it’s also something that the kids remember and try to live by and I hope that it’s something that you stress to your kids and also that you don’t forget it yourself. For more information on The V Foundation click here. To join the “Hoops for Hope” Group on Facebook, click here. Through 8 years of the tournament, we have now raised over $160,000 and gotten bunch of amazing people on board with our mission of one day ending cancer! Maybe you read this and decide that today is a ripe day to start doing right and join us, or maybe you decided to do right in another way…regardless of how you do it, today is a good day to get started!

Alright, that’s probably enough for one blog, besides, I just got done with my taxes so I have to write a letter to my congressman about how to spend all the money they’ll be receiving from me!