October 2006

It has been a long time between updates and a lot has happened. Orianna’s little sister, Samantha Ann Blissmer, arrived on June 14^th, 2005. Orianna and Samantha’s Grandmother saw a rainbow the evening that Sammy was born, and she knew it was Orianna telling us everything would be okay.  It was and is.

In memory of Orianna’s second birthday her fund, along with March of Dimes NICU Support, renovated the two nursing/pumping rooms in the PICU. The walls were painted sunshine yellow and we bought a couple of pictures from a local artist to hang on the walls. The room is  more cheerful and not so dreary.

                               Ronah from March of Dimes, helping                     Rob painting the walls

                                                                                                            Finished product

Along with redecorating the two rooms, Orianna’s fund also gave two birthday cakes, one for the Doernbecher Neonatal Care Center and one for the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit. A few more CD players, CD’s, preemie clothes, and little bags filled with personal hygiene items were donated to help family stays.

Once again the Easter Bunny (me) made an appearance for the DNCC. All of the babies had their picture taken with the bunny, along with their siblings, and receiving stuffed animals, with an Easter Bag filled with all sorts of goodies for the parents. Memories and smiles were made that day which will last a lifetime.

Orianna’s third birthday is coming up, November 4^th, and again we are planning on donating cakes, clothes, toys, CD players and other items in honor of her birthday.

If you or anyone you know would like to make a donation, please call me at 360-903-4111, or send items to PO Box 2778, Vancouver WA 98668.

Orianna’s newsletter is now going to be published quarterly, so please continue to contribute in any way that you can. We all sincerely appreciate all your efforts, especially the children and their families at Doernbecher.

Sincerely,

Stefanie Blissmer

January 14^th my Aunt Sue and I will be giving a presentation for the Sunrise Rotary Club. (I like the name, figure it is an omen). So hopefully we can get some good contacts and a steady sponsor or two. Wish us luck! I get nervous and don’t speak very well in public.

Have a Happy New Year!

            Orianna’s birthday is coming up, November 4th; Monica has a great idea about celebrating her birthday by having our next donation at the hospital that day. This is a way for us to celebrate Orianna’s birthday and help other children in need. So that is our game plan. We are a short on several items for the overnight bags. If anyone has some time and would like to make a run the Dollar Store please let me know. There is also a need for crib toys, mobiles, and stuffed animals. If anyone has any extra please give me a call.

 Right at the moment, there is about $800.00 in our account. A couple of hundred of it will be used for the November 4^th donation, and $150.00 will be used for the IRS 501(c)(3) filing.

            Julie Vann has assumed the position of Secretary vacated by Jennifer Evans. We look forward to seeing her at our next meeting. This will be held Saturday October 30th at 4:00pm at Stefanie’s house.

            We received two good donations in September. One was a laptop, which was received from an anonymous donor. The other was six dozen cookies and crackers from Partners Crackers in Seattle. We greatly appreciate these generous donations and they will be put to good use.

            The candy bar sales went well. We made $270.00. Sales of the entertainment books are going slow. We have sold 14 so far. They will be on sale through December, so if you want one, they are still available

            Doernbecher’s PICU has expressed a need for children’s VHS movies, if you happen to have any that you don’t watch anymore, we can put them to good use.

We are selling the 2005 Entertainment books right now, if you or anyone that you know would like one please give me a call or email. We will be selling the books until December.

 Don’t forget Orianna’s fund will be having a garage sale every year, so if you come across something you don’t want any more and would like to donate, let me know and I will come and pick it up.

 Jennifer Evans has resigned as Secretary, if anyone is interested in filling the position until February, please let me know. (Every year we will have an election for officers to serve as the directors of Orianna’s Fund)

 Doernbecher Neonatal Care Center sent a lovely card thanking us for our donations and how the person who received the overnight stay at Embassy Suites was incredibly pleased and honored. DNCC is honored at what we all are doing for them and tribute to the memory of Orianna.

Monica and I will be delivering everything this coming Monday (8/04) along with some CD’s and CD players to the DNCC unit. It is definitely nicer to listen to soothing music than the beeping of monitors.

Our next meeting will be August 22^nd at 4pm. We will be going over the sales of Entertainment books which will be out the week of the 23^rd. Sales will be done locally and across the United States. The book is available in over 150 editions and prices vary slightly from city to city. Their will be a link on Orianna’s website, within the next day or two, that you can click on and see how much the book will be in your city. Prices that are listed include shipping and handling.  There already is a link on her website to order Entertainment books. You just need to enter our selling number: 90416

As it gets closer to the 23^rd of August I will send out a reminder email if you want to order a book. Feel free in forwarding the email to your friends and family who may enjoy using the Entertainment book. (HINT-HINT! J)

The bake sale is pushed back from August until the middle of September. My Aunt Sue thought that September would be better due to the fact that everyone will be back from vacations. I am still working on a date for a car wash. I’ll send out an email with the time and date. My goal is having the car wash finalized by the end of this week.

          On May 8^th Orianna’s Fund donated another 50 overnight bags to the PICU unit at Doernbecher. The nurses really appreciate them. Unfortunately spring weather usually means more patients at the hospital.

          Our next fundraiser is going to be at the Gee Creek rest area for their free coffee program, on June 8^th. We still need a couple more volunteers if anybody is interested. So and So, at McDonalds in Salmon Creek will be donating coffee, cups, stir sticks, orange drink and a few other miscellaneous items. YEAH!

Orianna’s Fund is also in the process of putting together a presentation for a rotary club made up of local business. Hopefully we can get some local support and start spreading the word around and make some good contacts. My Aunt Sue will be the speaker. (I still need to work on public speaking, apparently I should have taken a speech class at school!) The presentation will consist of a slide show and information about Orianna, Doernbecher Children’s Hospital and why we started this fund to benefit patients and their family at Doernbecher. If you have any ideas, please give me a call. 

          Our meeting was May 23^rd. We discussed our future car wash in either in Salmon Creek or Cascade Park. We also covered who is on the board of Directors. Stefanie Blissmer- President, Monica Phillippi- Vice Pres, Rob Blissmer- Second Vice Pres, Jennifer Evans-Secretary and Cheryl Headen- Treasure. Our next meeting will be sometime in July.

Thank you all for your love and support.

          I would also like to thank our church, Holladay Park Church of God. We have placed our first donation barrel for the month there and the congregation did a great job filling it up. Thank you. Our goal is to have a two barrel’s placed at different businesses every month for people to toss in shampoo, deodorant, calling card and anything else people may want to donate. If you know of a business that may be interested in helping, please let me know.

          Today Orianna’s Fund donated 4 CD players, 44 CD’s and a case of Kleenex. If anyone wants to help me burn CD’s I would appreciate the help. My computer and its burner don’t play well together.

The next couple of weeks I will be getting more overnight bags together for parents. Oh, speaking of which, if anyone here in Vancouver needs a haircut, go to Super Cuts in Hazel Dell. They are our first sponsor to respond to all of the letters we have been writing. They donated 5 bags of hair products and coupons for free haircuts. 

            Last weekend we became associated with The Friends of Doernbecher, everything now donated to Orianna’s Fund can be a tax write-off. Yea. So between our church, Holladay Park Church of God, Friends of Doernbecher, and friends and family, Orianna and her memory continue on.

            Our first fundraiser will be on April 24 & 25^th. We are going to have our first annual garage sale. Some of our other fundraisers will be a carwash in July, selling of Entertainment books the second week of August, and Aunt Sue is going to have a bake sale and raffle in Hoquiam.

We are going to put donation barrels at various places of business and standing outside of stores asking people to by an extra chap stick, shampoo, or anything else they may want to pick up for the children and families at Doernbecher.