This time last year, team member Matt was going through chemotherapy treatments for cancer and team member (and my dad!) Bob was in the ICU undergoing emergency brain surgery. It was a brutal, scary, and exhausting year for not only Dad and Matt, but all their friends and family members as well. We all learned firsthand what it's like to spend long days in the hospital, to drop everything to become caregivers, and to get difficult, life-changing news. And all of us are adults! It's even more difficult for children diagnosed with critical illnesses who are forced to face challenges well beyond their years. We are so lucky that Matt won his battle with cancer and Dad made an incredible recovery. Now we're celebrating by paying it forward - by raising money for the Make-A-Wish foundation through the Trailblaze Challenge!
The Trailblaze Challenge will have us hiking a whopping 27 miles of the Pacific Crest Trail...in one day!! We'll start before dawn in the mountains of Wrightwood, California, and finish in the desert after 14+ hours on the trail. It's a daunting task but one that we are ready to tackle to make some wishes come true! Research shows that wishes have proven physical and emotional benefits that can give a child better health outcomes and increase their chances for survival, and we want to help bring that kind of joy and support to kids in our community. Wishes can range from a trip to a pickle factory, becoming a superhero, giving their baseball team new uniforms, or even pushing all the buttons in the elevator of a tall building!
Make-A-Wish grants thousands of wishes each year, but they only have the funds to grant wishes for less than half of eligible kids. After the challenging couple of years we’ve had, we are extra motivated to do what we can to fill that fundraising gap and give these kids something special to look forward to! Please support this impactful mission by helping us hit our Trailblaze Challenge fundraising goal. All donations are tax-deductible and your money goes towards granting wishes right here in Southern California. Thank you so much for your support!
About Me:
I'm a Michigan native, a UCLA Bruin, and work in TV! I've had my own health challenges (Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome) since childhood, and hiking has been a vital way for me to build crucial cardio fitness that helps alleviate my symptoms. For years, I didn't have the confidence to work out, fearing my heart condition would lead to a 911 call from the gym. But this group of friends and family encouraged me to try hiking, and in 2020 they helped me conquer one of my lifelong dreams: to summit Half Dome in Yosemite! That challenge was for me, this challenge is for the kids!
What's in a Name?
Fun fact--four of the five of us are TV writers and we’re reasonably sure that Bob has at least seen a television! One of the biggest signs of success in the television industry is syndication, where the show is re-aired on a different network, often with a hefty payday attached. If something seems particularly primed for syndication, we’d say it has “syndication legs.” Now we’re on the trail of a massive payout (for the kids), and we’re using our own syndication legs to get there.
