Happily Ever After League

It has been a long time coming and after four years of renting the HEALing House we have finally purchased a home of our very own! The programs and outreach at the house are a huge success and provide over 100 services to moms and their families each month.

I am so excited about this growth step for HEAL and not only do we have a larger space to grow our programs and our mortgage payment is actually lower then our rent payment was. This means we will have even more money to put into HEALing House programs!

I am in awe of the number of volunteers and hours that have gone into creating this Habitat for HEAL.  One of our moms said it best in a thank you to us:

“You all have really given me some hope that there is a rainbow at the end of my storm.” - Pam

We look forward to seeing our HEAL families and supporters at our new home!

To see pictures of the new house visit our photo gallery page.

It has been a festive spring for HEAL while we celebrated our 4th Annual Fairytale Tea which is one of our best attended fundraisers.  We also hosted a Mommy and Me Tea for the HEAL moms and children at the HEALing House.  One of our moms said that she loved how our volunteers treated all of the guests at the Mommy and Me Tea like queens.  That personally makes me so happy to hear because it is the mission of the HEALing House to improve the quality of life for mothers and their families as they deal with the challenges of cancer.  For a short time that we gather you can see the stress just melt away while it is replaced with smiles and laughter. The moms also enjoyed beautiful music compliments of Joyce Buekers of The Harp Foundation.

A highlight for me this year at the Fairytale Tea was announcing three students to receive the Laura Mylonas Scholarship.  The 1st place winner this year was Marios Mylonas.  He is a graduating Senior at Desert Mountain High School and happens to be the son of Laura for whom HEAL named the Scholarship Fund.  It was very touching that Marios was selected for his hard work in school and baseball as well as his moving application and essay.  He speaks of how watching his mother through her cancer recovery and ultimately losing her battle made him desire to be a more positive person, more like his mom.

He could not attend the Tea because he was Captain of the DMHS Baseball Team and they were in the play offs, he also had to get ready for Senior prom that same night.  I am sure his mother must be very proud to see the wonderful young man he has become and living life to the fullest. HEAL is very honored to help Marios in the next chapter of his life with a $2,000 Scholarship that came from fund raising efforts.

The Fairytale Tea was a huge success and Licensed to Bling did an amazing job of bringing out fun new styles for the fashion show which featured HEAL moms and their daughters as models. The competition is quite fierce and our table hostesses did an outstanding job decorating their tables. Denise Lewandowski’s Mad Hatter Table won “Best in Show”  and Ruthie Cohen’s 101 Dalmatians Table won the table that best coordinated to their theme.  Colleen Katz and her 3 Little Pig table won a catered tea for their table guests for being the table which raised the most money for HEAL for the 2nd year in a row.  Due to the efforts of 270 guests we now have $20,000 to put towards our mission of support for Arizona mothers with cancer.

(Pictured top right is Gracie Daniels, Lauren Daniels, tea table guest Lindsey who donated money from her Bat Mitzvah for her seat at the Fairytale Tea, and HEAL recipient Rhonda Ross. Bottom right is HEAL moms and volunteers.)

I am so grateful to Chris Thomas and Nikole Stahl for choosing HEAL to receive a portion of the proceeds from their production of SHOUT!  This was a dance musical that Chris Thomas wrote, produced and choreographed and the cast was simply amazing. They had two sold out shows on April 9, 2011 at the Mesa Arts Center and it truly was entertaining from beginning to end.

I was so inspired to watch this group of young talent and to see how you can achieve greatness when you follow your dreams and do not let obstacles and fear come in the way of your vision.

I feel this way when I think about HEAL. Sometimes we just have to forge on and follow our instincts and say “yes”. I am glad I did and I have great joy in knowing that nearly 500 mothers recovering from cancer have had some relief from what was just an idea that became a true labor of love from the entire community.

Pictured from left to right:  HEAL founder Lauren Daniels, SHOUT! cast member Jared Johnson, Kayli Daniels, SHOUT! cast member Alyssa Johnson, Sean Daniels and Gracie Daniels.