Presented by the Special Needs Resource Foundation of San Diego

June 18, 2016
www.SNRFSD.org

​Check it out!

We can't believe it! We just turned six! Cecily's Closet has taken on a life of its own - and with every passing year we are in shock at what an impact we continue to have on our community.

​Six years ago a vision to help others who lacked the same type of family support that we are so lucky to be blessed with turned into a mission of helping other families. We had simple goals, a small team, and a hope that we would make a difference for a few families.

Now, with 2016 here we can proudly say we've had more than 500 volunteers serve with our organization in some form or fashion.  We had 44 of our youngest contributors help transform our first room makeover for 2016 - and the impact this room had on the children helping was profound. It has helped solidify the direction of our organization to continue to forge partnerships with local youth groups (TVIA, Girl Scouts, NCL, and more) to provide opportunities that enable children to help other children in future years.

We are so proud of our volunteer led organization and that fact that we are able to help so many families with very little overhead and no paid staff.  

Over the last 6 years Cecily's Closet has completed the following:
- 78 room makeovers with three more in production
- Provided more than 1500 belly bands to children in need
- Recycled more than 500 pieces of medical equipment
- And shared various donations with families in need - toys, books, and lots and lots of love and encouragement through our various book drives & adopt a family programs

​There are too many people to count by name but we'd like to recognize 
Jon Ray, owner of PaintGreen. for his constantly commitment and support for our organization.  Jon and his team graciously donated their time and talent to provide a beautiful backdrop for every room we've ever asked him to help with!

And thank you to our team of wonderful artists with a special thank you to our repeat givers:  Inside Emily Dolton's Head, Hannas Murals, Kevin Anderson, Arielle and Sweet Delisa!  We love our artists and we are actively recruiting more for future rooms. If you have friends or family that can help - please let us know.

​Thank you to our belly band crew! Thank you to Ingrid and her Mom, Jane, Denise, Kelly Wesseln, Jennifer Bayliss, Julie B., and all the volunteers who surprise us with belly bands from time to time.  We love that these protective wraps designed to keep a g-tube or j-tube safe are made with love from volunteers and shipped to families in need.  We are so proud of the work this program has accomplished! Thank you to Anita for managing the orders, shipping the bands and meeting all of our demands. You are such a blessing!

​Thank you to our board of directors who provide the vision and strategic planning for our efforts. What a team! Thank you to Gina, Julie B., Julie D., Christina, Anita, Emily, Kate, Dr. Christine Wood, and Suzy for your hard-work all year long.

​We often get asked how can we help?  The biggest areas of support for 2016 are centered around fundraising/grant writing and creating our belly bands.  We are committed to scaling our belly band and equipment recycling programs next year.  We may complete less room makeovers  - but we are committed to keeping this program in place, too. So please spread the word!

​Ask your employers if you have discretionary funds for non-profits.  We find that the smaller corporate donations add up and enable us to keep all three of our programs alive and running!

​Cecily's Closet has operated without a paid staff for six years - and it is our mission to continue to operate this way!  Every penny received goes directly to fund our programs. We have very little overhead costs. 

Thanks for believing!  Let's see what we can do in 2016!

Onwards and 
upwards!

Life is so busy that we rarely blog anymore.  I do love reflecting back on older posts to laugh at myself and to see just how far our little family has come over the last few years.

​The children are thriving! Noah, Cecily and Cason are all trucking forward on their own paths. Who knew these three children could all come from us? Despite the physical resemblance,  there is very little that connects these kiddos other than a healthy spirit.

​Noah pushes himself too hard. Cecily is pushed by us - too hard! And Cason, well he believes that our instructions are merely a light suggestion to be discarded at a moment's notice should something more exciting come along his path.  It is safe to say the kids keep us on our toes and there is never a dull moment in our house.

​Cecily is now eating, running, jumping, and singing through life.  Her words emerge each day, bigger, bolder and louder. She still has many more mountains to climb but she is climbing them and we are grateful. We celebrate her successes because life is too short and we know how much sacrifice we have faced to get where we are today!

​Noah and Cason are action sports oriented! From skating to surfing and beyond - there is really nothing these boys are not ready to try or play.  Swim lessons, music lessons, gymnastics, soccer, skateboarding... all adds up to one delightfully hectic schedule.  Throw in Cecily's appointments, therapies and her own fun activities - we're making the most of our mini-van.

​And then there is our glorious little organization, Cecily's Closet.  We are about to embark on our 6th birthday! It is so shocking to us that the years just keep racing by... and there is no pause button.  We are so grateful to our community for keeping us going.  We have to admit - the organization is often growing faster than we can keep up.  It is busy! It is a lot of work... but it is our baby.  We have met some amazing individuals who continue to surprise us with their support and willingness to go above and beyond.

​The San Diego community has embraced our little organization and has enabled us to keep on serving children with special needs and their supportive parents.  We've already completed 3.5 room makeovers this year - and there are several more in progress. We have worked with The Cardiff School and 44 young volunteers who made a room makeover possible for Alex.  Working with these students was a truly inspirational process and has made us want to investigate how we can get more of these projects into schools.  We believe the students who learned about Alex, his needs, his family and his challenges have a greater appreciation or their own gifts and a sense of accomplishment from helping to truly transform a room for a class-room aged student.

​We are grateful for our partnership with TVIA that is as strong as ever. They did a wonderful job on Danny and Jacob's room.  And now, we're working with yet another Girl Scout Troop.  The ability to involved children and teens with projects to help other children and teens in the community is truly a dream come true for us.

​Thank you San Diego for sticking with us!  We're on a roll... 2016 is the beginning of great things!

​Onwards and upwards!

UNDIAGNOSED FAMILY SUPPORT GROUP
FALL MEETING
 
WHEN
Saturday 7 November 2015
2-5PM
WHERE
Ronald McDonald House
2929 Children's Way
San Diego, CA 92123
 
BRINGING TOGETHER FAMILIES OF UNDIAGNOSED CHILDREN TO LEARN, SHARE AND SUPPORT EACH OTHER AMIDST THEIR LONG JOURNEY IN SEARCH OF A DIAGNOSIS.
 
A MEETING OF FAMILIES WITH UNDIAGNOSED CHILDREN
 
SPEAKER
BETH Thorp, FOUNDER, Mitchell Thorp Foundation,  will share her story and her mission to help families battling life threatening diseases
 
Craft activities for the children. Please RSVP [email protected]
 

We are grateful every day for being able to run Cecily's Closet.  The gift of giving back to our community and helping children with special needs helps us keep the wagon wheels on when the going gets tough!

We are constantly amazed by the support Cecily's Closet receives by local businesses in our community. Our dear partner Tritia Gustine of Beach Bungalow Designs reached out to us almost two weeks ago with amazing news! She was once again renovating her beautiful store in Flower Hill Mall, Del Mar - and she had some beautiful goodies for Cecily's Closet.

We were beyond excited! Then we showed up and we jumped for joy!  Below is a sampling of just some of the beautiful items she shared with our organization so we can keep and support our mission of providing room makeovers for kiddos with special needs in San Diego.

Beach Bungalow
Beach Bungalow Designs is a design store that produces casual to luxurious custom designs for baby to teen.  Their emphasis is on creating unique bedding, upholstery, window treatments, and furniture that reflect your child’s personality. 

Beach Bungalow Designs was established in 2004 by Tritia Gustine and AlexisBurns.  This San Diego mother-daughter team has finally realized their dream of opening up a boutique design store. 

And as Beach Bungalow grew, so did their charter.  They are now revamping their store to be a studio/design loft to support their expanded business of interior design for the entire home!  We are so lucky to partnered with this beautiful company.  They have provided us with countless goodies over the years and they have made so many children smile.  Thank you Tritia and your team for supporting our mission and making our Sweet Dream Room Makeover program possible!

Those of you that follow Cecily's Closet know we refer to our loving organization as a series of happy accidents.  First, we didn't set out to form a non-profit. We just wanted to give back to all the people who made our transition into the world of special needs a heck of a lot easier!  And second, we wanted to provide hope for families that may have been having a hard time on their journey. We know and appreciate that life can deal some unexpected blows - but we also came to appreciate (with time and help) that sometimes the best gifts come wrapped in the most unexpected packages. And it is directly because of our challenges and opportunities that Cecily's Closet came to be!

Over the last few years we've met some interesting, devoted, passionate, generous, hard-working, big-hearted and simply put - amazing - people that have supported our cause and made it blossom. We have worked with more than 400 volunteers of all ages - and each and every one has directly contributed to our success. One of our most happy accidents in recent years has been working with youth and teens.  We never set out to do this - but these proactive individuals always found us - and we are so grateful they did.

I'd like to share a guest blog post from a very devoted and giving Mom, Kelly Wesslen.

By Kelly Wesslen

May 14th, 2015 I was attending a Teen Volunteers In Action meeting, listening attentively to Rachel Ackley of Cecily’s Closet, describe her non-profit organization.  I was so touched by the heartfelt thought, stemming from the creators and their efforts to renovate and transform homebound sick children’s rooms. The story of Cecily and her disease moved me, especially because this strong confident entrepreneur speaking, was her mother. When Rachel shared one aspect of the organization was to find volunteers to sew and provide belly bands to all family’s for the protection and comfort over feeding tubes on the children’s stomachs, a light bulb clicked.  

I am a leader of a 9th grade Girl Scout troop, comprised of 7 girls, recently graduated from Notre Dame Academy, The Jewish Academy and Carmel Valley Middle School. In the past couple years our troop’s focus has been “Fun, Development and Philanthropy”. We taught the girls how to sew. It struck me that they could probably sew belly bands for these families in need. I spoke with Rachel briefly and followed up with her, proposing our efforts.  I investigated the details of sewing the belly bands further and proposed it to our girls. They were interested and touched by Cecily’s story and we decided to give it a try.  After a trip to the fabric store and two long summer days of sewing parties, the girls accomplished 14 belly bands! It was quite an effort, since most girls had only sewed 2 pillows during our learning sessions. We are sure our future belly bands will be of a higher quality, but the girls were proud and humbled to offer their first belly bands to Cecily and Rachel for distribution to families.

The Ackley’s welcomed our GS troop into their home. The girls met Cecily, saw her decorated room, and learned a great deal about Cecily’s Closet and giving to others. They even enjoyed a tasty cupcake that the Ackley’s so generously prepared.  The girls are motivated to sew more belly bands in what spare time they can muster during their freshmen year of high school. We are all grateful to have been introduced to Cecily, Rachel and the Cecily’s Closet Organization.

Thank you Kelly for sharing your experience with us and for opening the door to yet another opportunity for teens in our community.

We are so grateful to the devoted young women who donated their time and talent to sew belly bands for children with feeding tubes.  We would not be able to sustain this program if it were not for people like Kelly that reach out and offer their help! We are so very grateful for the beautiful belly bands they produced and we know that the children that receive them (and their families) will feel that their children are wrapped with love when they wear them.

We say it ALL the time but it is true: volunteers are the heart and soul of our organization.  Enjoy the pictures below of these beautiful young women as they create belly bands for children in our community.

Onwards and upwards!