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James SooHoo

March 2010

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WHAT CAN YOU DO FOR PINK AND BLUE?

Oct 20, 2005 01:33pm (EST)

Hi everyone,

I’ve been out of the office a lot lately…and haven’t had a chance to blog. I’m going to rectify that right now and write not just one entry today but two!

First, I wanted to give you all some news on some great stuff that’s going on around the country right now and through the month of November.

If you don’t already know, November is Prematurity Awareness Month. March of Dimes staff and volunteers around the country will be making a concerted effort to raise the public awareness of the escalating crisis of premature birth.

To kick off Prematurity Awareness Month, a three-page photo/editorial spread is in the Nov. 8 issue of Family Circle magazine, on newsstands now, is devoted to March of Dimes Prematurity Awareness Month. The spread features six March of Dimes celebrity volunteers and their children outfitted in pink and blue, the colors of the Prematurity Campaign.

There is also a six-page photo spread in the November issue of Parents Magazine devoted to March of Dimes Prematurity Awareness Month. The spread features premature babies outfitted in pink and blue, the colors of the March of Dimes Prematurity Campaign. In addition, Parents is donating 50 percent (or $6 per issue) from all yearly subscription renewals or new subscriptions to the March of Dimes. Subscriptions are available by calling 1-800-727-3682 and by mentioning code JMODPMM. The offer expires Jan. 31, 2006.

Buildings and landmarks will be lit in pink and blue around the country on November 15 (Prematurity Awareness Day). Among them, for the second straight year Niagra Falls will be backlit in pink and blue as a tie-in with the Buffalo Sabres celebration of pink and blue night. News personalities in many cities will be wearing pink and blue on the same day.

We have events planned in every state including rallies and summits. If you are interested in getting involved locally, please visit marchofdimes.com or contact your local chapter.

Very best,

- James

ps. I just learned today that Albert Einstein was born prematurely. True.

Posted by James SooHoo | Comments: (6) | Permalink

SAN DIEGO

Sep 23, 2005 06:37am (EST)

As I mentioned last week, we held our Volunteer Leadership Conference (VLC) in San Diego last week to dedicate the north building of the Salk Institute to the March of Dimes, highlight important research and programs we are implementing, recognize our top volunteers, appreciate individual and team fundraising efforts, and also to brainstorm and share ideas. The largest March of Dimes conference ever, the 2005 VLC was attended by almost 1,100 corporate leaders, top volunteers, doctors, researchers and key March of Dimes staff. Among this group, were five of our SHARE moms (Donna, Melissa, Darcy, Michelle and Karri).

Here are some snippets and random thoughts....

An hour into the conference, we scheduled our SHARE moms to read a sampling of their own posts from the site. They didn't know which posts had been chosen and didn't have a chance to rehearse. In fact, I only asked them to do it a day before.

Donna, Michelle, Darcy and Karri went first and read their's beautifully. And then we ended with Melissa. We asked Melissa to read something she had written about the agonizing final moments of son Alex, who had been born prematurely.

Watching Melissa was one of the most poignant moments of my life. She was up there alone. A faint spotlight overhead. Her hands trembled, she cried, she paused, continued, cried again. It's hard to describe the energy of over 1000 people who were listening to her every word, who cried with her and at the same wanted to run up from their seats to hug her while she read.

Thank you, Melissa, so much for sharing your story. While you seemed alone up there, you made others in the audience in the same position feel much less alone. You also underscored the importance of everything that would follow over the next few days.

I'm wishing right now that I could give everyone an overview of all of the amazing presentations and workshops that were taking place. Unfortunately, I can't. I spent the next three days presenting my own roundtables and workshops.

Karri co-facilitated workshops for our staff on making WalkAmerica more family friendly and more mission oriented. More people signed up for and attended these workshops than any other. If you notice changes at your walksites next year, think of Karri. She made a profound impact on the staff.

During her state of the organization address, Dr. Jennifer Howse, the president of the March of Dimes, highlighted five of the most important initiatives the organization has undertaken this year. Two of these were Family Teams and SHARE. This is all about all of you! These two initiatives are entirely volunteer developed and driven!

For the first time ever, we recognized our top Family Teams during the WalkAmerica awards.

Melanie Sweeney won a national volunteer of the year award. Congratulations Melanie!

Melanie's 9-year old son Emmitt wrote and gave a speech about what it means to him to be a year-round March of Dimes volunteer and got a standing ovation.

I'm sure that Darcy makes everyone's A-list to parties. Her boundless energy is only matched by her empathy.

These thoughts and snippets really are random. You should see my desk.

As I said above, the Salk Institute dedicated the north building to the March of Dimes. I will try to get a picture up today.

Donna is quiet, thoughtful. A beautiful soul.

I wish I could have invited everyone from SHARE to come with me. You are all so important to me.

The last workshop of the last day was co-facilitated by Michelle and Nancy. It was about March of Dimes online outreach sites and focused on nacersano.org (our spanish language website) and, of course, SHARE. All of our SHARE moms talked about how they found the site and why. We also had some discussion about local staff involvement on the site (more on this in my next blog). In the evaluations, one person said that it was the highlight of the entire conference for him. Another said that it was best workshop he had ever attended. Thanks Michelle and Nancy!

Marla, if you do get on SHARE and read this, I can't thank you enough. I couldn't have dreamed up a better volunteer/staff presentation team than we were in San Diego. You rock!

I'm starting to think that I could go on with this for pages and pages.

So much happened, so much great work accomplished at this conference that it would literally take me four days to write it all down. I haven't had a chance yet to read the blogs of the five moms and Nancy...but I will now. I'm sure they will have already filled in some of the blanks!

Posted by James SooHoo | Comments: (8) | Permalink

UPDATES

Sep 12, 2005 06:53am (EST)

Hi everyone,

As one of my co-workers mentioned to me on Friday, what’s the point of having a blog if you aren’t going to write anything. While I have been following everything going on in the community, I guess I needed that friendly kick in the pants.

First and foremost, I want to say how amazing it is that so many of you put together care packages for the hurricane victims. I was in Atlanta during the hurricane and saw the first refugees arriving from the gulf coast. They were coming in on caravans of busses from the veteran hospitals. Even through many of them were connected to oxygen tanks and various equipment, they were the lucky ones, they were the ones well enough to travel. There were still so many left behind. It means so much that you all gave of your time, money and effort to help people you will never meet. I am so proud to “know” all of you and be a part of this community.

Second, since my blog is technically entitled “behind the scenes with James,” I thought it would be appropriate to mention two of my co-workers: Judi Gooding and Liza Cooper. They are both working around the clock on the hurricane relief. Liza went down to Baton Rouge, Louisiana to help out in the NICU and the shelters and Judi is coordinating March of Dimes efforts nationally. They are two of the most angelic people I have ever met and both are personal heroes of mine. If you ever have the chance to meet them, you will know instantly that they would hate that I’m writing about them now and would say that they are just doing their jobs. They don’t, however, have the chance to ever read my blogs so I can say what I want and I just want to say that they always go so above and beyond, I am forever humbled in their presence.

Finally, I also want to let you know that Nancy and a couple of our community members (Michelle, Donna, Melissa, Karri and Darcy) will be speaking about the importance of SHARE in San Diego this week. The audience of almost 1,100 people include some of our most important volunteers from around the country, business leaders, doctors, researchers and key March of Dimes staff. I will keep you posted from San Diego this week.

Thanks again for all you are doing for the families in the gulf coast. I know that it is very much appreciated!

Very best,

- James

Ps. If you haven’t had a chance, take a look at Liza’s blog from Baton Rouge.

Posted by James SooHoo | Comments: (6) | Permalink

MGB (MINI GUMMY BEAR)

Aug 15, 2005 08:53am (EST)

Thanks for all of the messages! We saw our (aptly named by Melissa) “Mini Gummy Bear” last week. Sorry it took so long to share this. It took me a little while to figure out how I truly felt about it all. When it was just a little circle it was very easy to be excited. When it grew into something that looked like a stryrofoam peanut, I started to get nervous about the future. And then in one short month, we suddenly had a little body. He/she has eyes and a mouth. And he/she was moving his/her arms and legs around like a fish in a bowl. In fact, my wife who is a physician and conducted many sonograms, said it was the most active little baby she’s ever seen at this stage.

And then it hit me that this was real. I had one of those time/space altering, “life flashing before you” kind of moments. My life would change forever. I can say now that I’m excited that my life will change. At the time, all I could think about was that it would change. Right now, I’m counting down the days to February with excitement. At the time, I was thinking that this was moving too fast.

All of that said, thanks for all of your support and excitement for us. We really appreciate it. Kristen is doing well. She has already gained a much needed 12 pounds. She’s no longer feeling nauseous. Right now, she’s just tired all of the time. I’m going to have her do a guest blog for me in the next week or two. I just wanted to wait until she stopped being cranky.

Posted by James SooHoo | Comments: (11) | Permalink

THE POWER OF VOLUNTEERS

Aug 08, 2005 07:56am (EST)

Honestly, I can't believe SHARE is only 1. It seems like Darcy, Karri, Sharlene, Melissa, Brenda, Donna, Hailey, Nancy and all of my other friends on SHARE have been a part of my life for so much longer.

I still remember when the was just an idea that Marc Sirkin was tossing around. Marc sat in the office next to mine and would talk about it from time to time. I remember then, that I kind of brushed him off with a little "okay, Marc, you go do that" and didn't think much about it one way or the other. At the time, I was putting together the framework for the Family Team program, so one would have thought I would have listened to him more. Okay, no one has ever accused me of being the brightest star in the sky.

And, now, one year later SHARE and Family Teams are two of the top things the organization is most proud of from 2004/2005. That said, and Marc would agree with this, neither would have happened without the guidance and support from our volunteers. For me, Melanie Sweeney worked tirelessly around the clock writing Family Team materials and helping me roll the whole program out across the country. Likewise for Marc, Michelle Reeves was there every step of the way providing her input, suggestions, changes, guidance. Without Melanie there would be no Family Team program; without Michelle there would be no SHARE. Both radically changed the entire organization for the better.

The power of volunteers is amazing. You all, everyone here at SHARE, have done so much to get the word out, to help us fund important programs and research, to help us save babies and their parents from the sometimes devastating effects of prematurity. Thank you so much.

Posted by James SooHoo | Comments: (9) | Permalink

SOME PERSONAL NEWS

Aug 04, 2005 11:21am (EST)

Hey....we don't really have a dimesblog anymore, so you can now find me here. For those that don't know me, I'm James. I work at the national office of the March of Dimes and am part of the SHARE team.

I'll be using this space to talk about what's going on at the March of Dimes as well as great ways to get involved to help us get the message out about the problem of prematurity. But, I'll start all of that tomorrow.

As most of you know, I love this site. I was a little hesitant at first about going on, but have really come to appreciate and love the community and all of the friends I have made here.

That said, I thought you would all be the first people I would tell that my wife is expecting our first child. On Tuesday, she moved into her second trimester. You have all been where I'm at today. I'm nervous and excited all at once. If you created a blog here, look on the right hand side at the box of "expressions" (basically all of the faces like

). I go through every one of those expressions over the course of a minute.

Anyway.....wish us luck and keep it a secret. I haven't even told the people here yet.

very best,

- James

Posted by James SooHoo | Comments: (15) | Permalink