YouCaring: A Toadly Awesome Fundraising Tool

You know why are frogs so happy? Because they eat whatever bugs them.  AllAboutFrogs

Does it bug you that you don’t know what to do when a friend is facing a serious life challenge?

One thing that makes social media sites so engaging is that you never know what you’re going to see next: a joke, a dog or a frog. Anything’s possible.

While one friend is posting a profile of his wife’s very pregnant belly, someone else is checking his kid into an emergency room. How did the frog get hurt? He jumped to the wrong conclusion. It’s a real-time reality sitcom, soap opera and tragedy all at the same time.

One day, more than a decade ago, my husband and I were doing what we often did . . . driving around in our SUV loaded with kids looking for an affordable place to feed the family. As we were passing through fast food strip-mall lined suburbia, my youngest stepdaughter pointed out the window and said she wanted to eat at Chewys.

Everyone started cracking up. She had no idea why, so she continued on about how much she liked Chewy chicken, which made every laugh even louder.

“What,” she kept asking. “What’s so funny?”

We didn’t have Facebook back then, but if we did, our friends would have heard about this one.

“Daddy,” a teen girl asked her father, “how much does it cost to get married?”

“I don’t know,” he responded. “I’m still paying for it.” Jokes4All

If you have kids, you know how costly they can be, upwards of $200,000 each by the time they graduate from high school. Housing accounts for about a third of that expense, while child care and food combined accounts for another third. USA Today

One day a little girl brought home a story that she wrote. It was about a hungry frog. A proud father was inspired. Author Larry Levy elaborated on his daughter’s story and developed it into a book about Harry the Hungry Frog.

That’s how I first met Larry. He said “yes” when I invited him to talk to a group of writers. He shared a fun story about a frog who ventured out to find delicious food. That was several years ago.

Recently, Larry shared a different story . . .

Even when kids are relatively healthy, medical bills can put families in a pinch. So you can imagine how hard it is for a parent who suddenly has a mailbox full of doctor bills and hospital expenses he can’t afford.

Larry is a father who knows what this is like. And to make matters worse, doctors still haven’t found a cure. How would you feel if your child couldn’t even eat without being in pain?

To this day I still smile every time I drive by Chewys. I wonder what Larry will be thinking about his daughter Mya when he looks back ten years from now?

Next time a friend or family member is facing a serious illness, you don’t have to feel toadly helpless. Think about what you can do to offer just a little hope or hoppiness.

Here are numerous ways you may be able to help Mya or others like her who are ill:

• Contact Larry if you know a medical professional who may be able to help with her unusual illness.
• Ask if there’s anything specific you can do to help. Buy a Hungry Frog book to help support her family, for example.
• Share her story with your friends and family who may be able to help.
• Offer a donation through YouCaring to help with fundraising for her medical expenses.
• Give her a reason to smile, or even better, a reason to laugh. Jokes for Your Friends Who Are Sick and Tired
• Bring a smiling stuffed animal for her to snuggle with and to remind her to search for ways to smile every day. Frogs can turn into princes and wishes can come true.
• Learn about her illness so you can better understand what she’s going through. “A new study showed that licking a frog can cure depression, for example. The downside, however, is that as soon as you stop licking, the frog gets depressed again.” Jay Leno quote on MichaelsWorld
• Visit her in the hospital. Remember to fill the parking meter so your car doesn’t get toad.