Joy Town Support Raising- 2 weeks until race time!

This will be my last update on my support raising for my 1/2 IronMan 70.3 mile competition and I will include some details on Joy Town (the location where all the money is going!) and a brief update on my training. 

Memories from Joy Town...

Last Friday when I was back in Iowa City I was able to speak to the University of Iowa physical therapy faculty and students about my trip to Kenya. It was really neat because I got to share with them lots of stories from my experience working at Kijabe hospital and at Joy Town. If at any point you would like to see the powerpoint presentation that I shared with them then please let me know because I’d love to either share it with you in person or if that doesn’t work then I can send you the link to watch the live version. If you want to see the powerpoint that I presented then please feel free to go to this link- there are lots of pictures and videos that are pretty priceless! https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1y55b2KCcE1iJoG-y5zOrRrRcf9vOxLDoZCw1sZtawFk/pub?start=false&loop=false&delayms=5000

I learned a lot about giving aid to 3^rd world countries while in Kenya. I want to share 2 examples that I saw firsthand at Joy Town:

1) There is a wheelchair race course at Joy Town and the kids love the course and have races often since most of the kids there are wheelchair bound. If you look in the background of the picture below you see a stadium seating area…someone generously donated it to Joy Town but they did not have the foresight to make it handicap accessible.  Since the majority of kids at Bethany Kids are in wheelchairs then a large portion of the kids can’t use the stadium to cheer on their peers that are racing.

2)  An organization donated a pool to Joy Town because they thought it would be helpful for the kids to have a pool to do aquatherapy in to help them with their disabilities. Unfortunately, now there is a pool at Joy Town but there aren’t any physiotherapists that are even remotely trained in aquatherapy because that type of therapy doesn’t really exist in Kenya. The kids at Joy Town do get to go occasionally swimming but the upkeep with the pool is extremely expensive and difficult since ~1/5 of the kids do not have bladder/bowel control due to spina bifida and other neurologic disorders.

My point with these stories is not to discourage you to send money to organizations in 3^rd world countries. However, my point is to encourage you to do your research and investigate before you give. I have seen Joy Town with my own eyes and spent a long enough time there to know that the money that you have all donated is going to be used in order to improve the physiotherapy for the kids at Joy Town, which is a huge need.

Support raising- With all of your help I've now been able to raise $1,381.46 for Bethany Kids at Joy Town! Thanks so much to all of you who have helped support me! My goal through the 1/2 IronMan campaign was to raise at least $1,000 to send to Bethany Kids in order that more lives can be changed there. I really hope to raise more support these last two weeks because I can't wait to see the changes that they'll be able to make at Joy Town with all of the donations.

Training- 2 more weeks to go! It’s been a crazy last 1.5 months since I’ve written- unfortunately, I’ve had some sickness which has gotten in the way of my training and I’ve also been doing a lot of traveling back to the Midwest which has also made training difficult. However, I have gotten in a couple of ~60 mile bikes,~8 mile runs which were very difficult and long but they were good to build my confidence for race day. The most exciting part of my training has been that I was able to do a triathlon with Athletes in Tandem. 

The individual with disabilities that I raced with was 19 years old and she had never done any type of race before so I met with her for several times beforehand to make sure that her caretaker and her  felt comfortable with all 3 events and the transitions between them. Her caretaker was nervous how she would respond to 3 completely new things that she hadn’t experienced before but she was a ROCKSTAR. We had so much fun cheering on everyone that we passed during the triathlon…she would typically let out a holler and clap. While doing activities she frequently finds a song that she likes and sings one line over and over again- sometimes it’s Happy Birthday, sometimes it’s Hotel California or another oldies song. She absolutely loved the bike ride because she enjoyed going fast and I guess every day since then she has said “go for bike ride” on repeat because she really wants to go again. I hope to race with her again because I built a great relationship with her, her caregiver and her family through the process and it was an extremely rewarding process!

I am now tapering for race day and I would appreciate prayers for health the next 2 weeks before my race so that I can race both safe and strong and have fun!

To wrap it all up I want to say THANKS AGAIN to all of you for supporting me but more importantly for supporting and loving my Kenyan friends. You have no idea how much it means to me and how much of an impact it will have on them! The next email you will receive from me will be my last in that I will share the total amount raised and I will let you know how the race went!

If you are interested in supporting Bethany Kids at Joy Town the details are below:

I encourage you to support me for every mile of my half ironman race which is 70.3 total miles- 1.2 swim, 56 bike, 13.1 run! I am asking that you choose to donate a certain dollar amount for every mile I complete, 1 quarter would be $18.00, 2 quarters= $35.00, 3 quarters= $53.00, 1 dollar= $70.00. However, if you want to donate any other dollar amount that is fine as well.

If you are interested in donating then please send a check written out to Bethany Kids with Joy Town in the memo and send it to my address at 4408 John F Kennedy B302 Fort Collins, CO.