Tuesday, February 5, 2008

Go Huntsville Havoc!

Last Saturday night the Titsworth family attended our first Huntsville Havoc hockey game. I have to say that I had a blast even though I did not enjoy watching the fight. Apparently these fights break out at every game & the crowd loves it, but I did not enjoy watching the players punch each others faces! Boo to that!

Anyways, the main reason we went to the game was for the Melissa George Neonatal Memorial Fund. As you all know, Emma spent the first 3 months of her life in the Huntsville NICU & her first 4 weeks were spent in an isolette called a "Giraffe Bed." The Giraffe beds are the "rolls royce" of isolettes and are awesome for extremely premature babies like Emma was. Here is a link to a website that offers some info on these beds...http://www.gehealthcare.com/usen/perinatal/micro_environments/giraffe/products/giraffeomnibed_fnb.html
These beds cost approximately $35,000 and when Emma was in the NICU they only had 2 of them.

Back to the hockey game...the Melissa George fund was set up by her parents, Amy & Chris George. Amy George was one of our local news journalist for over 10 years and gave birth to twin daughters in 2005. Unfortunately, Melissa didn't make it, but her sister Ann Catherine did. In honor of Melissa, they established the memorial fund in order to raise money to buy more Giraffe beds for our local NICU. One of the fundraisers is through our Huntsville Havoc hockey team and they wear special jerseys during the game and then after the game they are auctioned off. Last year the team wore pink jerseys and were able to raise over $54,500 & this year they wore blue jerseys and raised over $65,000!!! Isn't that awesome? So we wanted to support the local NICU and got to meet Amy George herself and she is such a wonderful person! What she is doing is such an amazing thing. In the past year they have been able to raise over $135,000 and I believe the NICU will now have 7 Giraffe beds. Here is a link to Melissa's story so you can learn more about their story...http://www.huntsvillehospital.org/foundation/melissageorgefund/

George's mom, Judy, has also been getting donations sent to the foundation in honor of Emma's 1st birthday and if anyone is interested in making a donation, please leave me a comment or email me @ btitsworth@gmail.com and I can give you the information. This is such a wonderful foundation and any amount can make a difference!

Pics to come!

No comments: