Where We're At

Thank you for your continued interest in Abby Horan Charities! I apologize for the long delay between blog updates; with school, extracurriculars and, of course, AHC, it's been difficult to find the time to finally get on here and update the AHC website and blog!

Although I haven't been on here to write about it, AHC has in fact accomplished a lot over the past two years! Double T continues to flourish, as we have donated over 3,200 hygiene kits to date! Our recent recipients include various organizations for Haitian relief, following the horrific earthquake. Donations of hygiene supplies are, as always, greatly appreciated as we continue to grow. I'm hoping to make at least one more hygiene kit delivery this summer-- if anybody is aware of a group or organization that could use our kits, please e-mail me at abby@abbyhorancharities.org. We'd love to help!

I've been spending many of my days at the Kids on Track day camp for the children of the backstretch workers of Arlington Park Racetrack. I wrote a lot about the camp and my experience there on the AHC website (www.abbyhorancharities.org). I LOVE every moment I get to spend at the racetrack. The children who live there are so appreciative of everything, and just very fun-loving and adorable! They are incredibly in need of all support we can offer them, however. Families with up to six children live in 190 square foot one-room apartments on the backstretch. With little money to provide for added commodities, I made it my mission a few years back to give these kids all that I can, whether it be my time (I've volunteered regularly at the camp, and this year I was hired as a volunteer coordinator) or resources, which is why I consider the Catch the Reading Bug drive for new books for the kids so vital. Please consider donating new books to our drive, as well as any new stuffed animals. Thank you so much!

This year was my fourth year as a team captain for our local Relay for Life for the American Cancer Society. One of my favorite parts of directing AHC is the opportunity to spread my mission of helping others to my peers and other kids. Over 100 kids from our high school came out to this year's Relay for Life, which was so humbling to see. I love to see other kids getting involved and breaking stereotypes about "bad" teenagers. RFL is such an amazing event-- if you haven't been involved before, I strongly recommend you consider it! So much fun for such a great cause! Our school as a whole raised thousands for the American Cancer Society this year, which was awesome.

I'm sure there's more things that I'm forgetting to mention, but I updated our website as accurately as I could (including the "charties" spelling mistake on the homepage-- sorry about that!) so be sure to check that out for clarification! And, as always, feel free to e-mail me at abby@abbyhorancharities.org. I'd love to hear from you!

Thanks again for supporting AHC and all of our endeavors! As I look forward to my senior year of high school, I realize just how much the program has meant to me and so many others over the past several years. Thanks for making that happen!

Have a great summer!
Abby

Backstretch Donation

Happy Summer!! I hope that all of your summers' are going wonderful! I've had a very busy summer so far... Relay for Life and Double T have kept me busy for quite a while! So busy, in fact, (as many of you probably know) that we are not having a backyard carnival this summer. We've had six very successful events in the past, raising a combined amount of about $8,000. I've really missed having the carnival this year though, and I really hope it'll be back for it's 7th Annual event next summer.

Thank you so much to all of you who donated to my Emmy's Angels team for the Arlington Heights Relay for Life this past June 27. As most of you know, Emmy was a six-year-old friend of mine who passed away from cancer this past August. It meant a lot to me to be able to raise $500 on my own for the American Cancer Society (double the amount I raised last year!) and contribute to the at least $3,000 our team raised. We earned the title of "bronze team" for reaching the $2,500 mark. Hopefully next year we'll be able to do it again!

These past couple of days have been crazy for me and AHC, as I've been putting together a very large donation for the backstretch kids of Arlington Racetrack. These children live in what's called the "backstretch" of Arlington Racetrack while their parents work with the horses for half the year, and spend the other half of the year at another track in Cicero, Illinois. They grow up in very extreme poverty. I've had the pleasure of working with the kids through a non-profit day camp for them called "Kids on Track". I volunteer with "mis anaranjados" every Monday and Tuesday. It's been a very rewarding experience.

Through the amazing Volunteer Center of Northwest Suburban Chicago and their awesome "Backpacks for the Backstretch" program, AHC donated seven Target bags full of school supplies, about 50 stuffed animals, about 200 new books and 250 hygiene kits for these awesome, in-need children. Thanks to the Volunteer Center and their wonderful program for these kids, each and every one of them will receive a brand new backpack full of school supplies and more for their upcoming school year. Below are pictures with me and my friend Alex with our giant donation:





I also have a request...

DOUBLE T IS IN DESPERATE NEED
OF HYGIENE SUPPLIES.

After our donation to the backstretch kids, we have been scraped dry of hygiene supplies for our hygiene kits (which is good-- we just need more supplies now to help more people!). The community has been wonderful in the past, donating enough supplies to Double T so that we could donate 2,535 hygiene kits and 600 hygiene supplies to people in need around the GLOBE. Below is a list of supplies we need. Please, please, PLEASE e-mail me at abby@abbyhorancharities.org if you can help us out. While monetary donations are great, we especially appreciate supply donations. You can help us by donating...

Toothbrushes***
Trial-size toothpaste tubes***
Quart-sized zip-lock bags***
Floss
Sugar-free gum
Shampoo (trial-size)
Conditioner (trial-size)
Soap
Lip balm/ointment
Body lotion
Tissue (pocket-sized only)
Mouthwash
Deodorant
Hand wipes

***= we are completely out of these items at this time and REALLY need some!!

In the past many local dentists have stepped up and been of great assistance to Double T. If you can please ask your dentist to make a donation.

We especially need donations FAST as we have just received an urgent order for 100 hygiene kits!!

Thank you so much! Have an awesome summer!
Abby Horan

RELAY FOR LIFE 2008

IT'S TIME FOR RELAY FOR LIFE 2008...

I will once again be heading a team to walk in Arlington Heights' Relay for Life on June 27th at Hersey High School. Our team, Emmy's Angels, will be walking in memory of our own angel, Emily, who passed away from leukemia last summer. Emily never stopped smiling or inspiring!!

Please consider either joining our team for the walk or donating to this awesome cause (all proceeds go to the American Cancer Society). I really appreciate all contributions!!

To donate to my page, please go to:

http://main.acsevents.org/site/TR/RelayForLife/RelayForLifeIllinoisDivision?px=3610682&pg=personal&fr_id=7480

If that doesn't work--

1. Go to www.relayforlifearlington.com
2. Click on DONATE TO PARTICIPANT
3. Search "Abby Horan"

It's easiest to calculate donations when they're submitted online, but you can also print out an offline donation page when you're on my personal page. If you do donate online, please let me know so I can thank you properly!

Thank you very much. This cause is very near and dear to my heart as I am DETERMINED to help find a cure for cancer!! I want to raise as much money as I possibly can so that no child, no person ever has to go through what Emmy went through at age 6. Thanks so much for all of your help!!

Love,
Abby

SOOO busy!!

Hey everybody! I just got back from a "speaking engagement" at Zurich Insurance's Giving Summit (like literally, I just got back 10 minutes ago), and they have inspired me to update this thing! The amazing Jillian Walsh invited me to speak at their Summit about AHC... Zurich has been so helpful for me since they met me through the Volunteer Center. What an inspiring, hardworking corporation-- whether it's through inviting me to speak, putting together hygiene kits for Double T, or collecting books for Catch the Reading Bug, they have always 'jumped on the AHC bandwagon' to help. Thank you Zurich! It was great meeting all of you guys tonight... feel free to e-mail me at abby@abbyhorancharities.org.

Besides Zurich, I have been incredibly busy! I just made Footloose, our school musical, which will be really fun but will require a ton of extra time. As far as speech team goes, my season is officially over-- unfortunately I missed both state and nationals by 2 points each... I am the 1st runner up for nationals though, so if somebody gets food poisoning, I'm in! Haha =] I'm also very busy with our school's student council and as freshman class council president. I'm trying to work out a project with the class council and Children's Memorial, so we'll see what happens there.

We have so many donations right now! Thank you to all of our loyal donors and supporters! We've officially run out of space in my dad's old work room and the toys/donations are spreading out within our basement. This is of course fine with me-- the more donations, the better-- but not so fine for my sister, who insists I am purposely taking up her basement space.

Relay for Life is coming up! Our Emmy's Angels team will be walking in the Arlington Heights Relay at Hersey High School on June 27 in memory of our friend and inspiration Emily who passed away from leukemia this past August. I'll have more information on our team soon, but please mark the date and consider donating to our team. The more money we can raise to fight this horrible disease, the better chances there are for a cure in the future for people like Emmy. Thank you!!!

Thanks again for all of the support. It's because of people like you guys that inspire me to keep going with AHC. Please, either comment this entry or e-mail me so I know you stopped by! I love all the messages!!

Thank you,
Abby Horan

Happy Holidays!

Hello all loyal blog followers! It's a little late, but I'd like to wish you all a happy holiday season! I know my family has been insanely busy, and it is nice to have an extra week off of school to chill out and just relax!

So what's new with AHC? Well, just this morning my mom and I headed down to Chicago for one of my doctor appointments and arranged it so that we would make our second Something To Hold On To delivery right before it. For our second delivery, I handed out Barbie dolls, checker games, stuffed animals and beanie babies (about 50 items in all) to the kids at Children's Memorial Hospital's Oncology Day Hospital. Most of the kids there have cancer or a blood disease and receive their treatments as outpatients during the day at the clinic. The awesome nurse Allison Parise helped set up the delivery with us, and we met with child life specialist Julie around 9:30 this morning. Once there, we headed up to the fourth floor and went to the Kids Fight Cancer playroom to hand out stuffed animals and toys to the kids in there. I simply said, "Would anybody like a toy or stuffed animal?" and the kids came running! We handed out plenty of items to these amazing kids...

There were the humorous comments...

- I asked one little girl if she wanted a Barbie and she responded with "No, I hate Barbies. I'm a tomboy."
- There was this one boy who couldn't decide between a stuffed penguin and a teddy bear and was hugging both intensely to try and pick out the best. "They're staring at me!" He said. "Those cute little beady eyes are looking at me... I CAN'T DECIDE!" He even held a dance contest between the two stuffed animals before deciding which of the two was lucky enough to be his companion.
- The same boy and his sister gave a great show for the rest of those in the waiting room when they graphically described the rats in their house, leaving out NONE of the gory details and descriptions for all of us listening.


And the heart-touching ones...

- "I'm going to give this beanie baby to my mom," one ill child told me. "She collects them!"
- "I'm going to pick out a teddy bear for my little sister," another said.
- At the end of the day, after my appointment, we were in the lobby when I saw one of the little girls I gave a polar bear stuffed animal to run up to the receptionist, bear in hand, and say to the lady, "Look what I got today!"

It was an amazing experience to be able to give something to these little heroes. I was so touched by these kids, many of them sick themselves, choosing to give up their prize for a sibling or a parent. It was a great experience for me to be able to see these kids and help them personally. Thank you to all of those of you who donated to make this project possible!!!
With a delivery means another shortage in donations... anyone with access to new stuffed animals that can help us by either donating some of them or giving us a reduced price-- new toys work as well-- is greatly appreciated! I'm also very interested in activity books, like crosswords or coloring books that we can give to the kids at CMH so that they aren't bored during the waits and long days.

Now that it's 2008, I'd like to share with you all Abby Horan Charities' accomplishments for the year. In 2008, AHC has...

- Raised over $8,500 for charitable outreaches within the community

- Packaged and delivered 475 hygiene kits to people in need around the world

- Delivered over 350 miscellaneous hygiene products to those in need

- Donated 70 new paperback books to low-income children in the community

- Raised over $5,500 through the carnival for pediatric cancer research

- Raised over $2,000 for the American Cancer Society through Relay for Life

- Beaded and sold over 200 bracelets to benefit different charities

- Donated 50 stuffed animals and toys to Children's Memorial's Day Hospital

- Inspired countless members from the community to take action!

Thanks again to everybody! Happy 2008!
Love, Abby Horan

Happy Thanksgiving! I know it's been a really long time since my last update, but I figured that all you blog-followers would realize that my "up-to-date" entries are hardly "up-to-date".

Anyway, high school is catching up with me! Each day has been full of quizzes, tests, papers, reports, and plenty of extra-curriculars to go along with it. I'm on the speech team at RMHS, in which we compete every Saturday from 6:30 a.m. until around 5 at night and practice numerous times every week. I compete in "Oratorical Declamation" (where I read a speech by Mary Fisher about AIDS) and "Original Oratory" (where I read a speech I wrote about America's convenience addiction). It's a lot of fun, but a lot of work! Hopefully, I'll place at our upcoming meet and it'll all be worth it!

Donations needed for Double T and Catch the Reading Bug. I encourage all the families out there to check their children's book orders for the $0.99 books and order up... for just a dollar you can give a child the gift of a story!

Hope everybody had a great Thanksgiving... my family walked in a turkey trot for Emily's fund. It had a great turnout and was a lot of fun! Emmy's mom gave me a bracelet for graduation that reads "Guardian Angel, protect and guide, always stay by my side." It'll be nice to have that constant reminder of Emily by me all the time.

This Christmas, don't forget about the less fortunate! Consider donating a toy or two to a children's hospital or homeless shelter. Many churches and schools have drives... thanks to America's commercialism, it can be easy to forget those people who can't afford a gift, or even a meal. Don't pass up the chance to change somebody's life because you assume somebody else will read this and get involved... if everybody helped out, just a little bit, not as many people would need help! Don't just wait for the world to change-- get in there and change the world yourself!

Thanks so much for reading! Happy Holidays... and remember, accomplish today the goals you've set for tomorrow! Don't forget to comment this entry-- I don't know what's up with the guestbook for the time being...

Lots of love,
Abby Horan
P.S.--> The picture's from Homecoming '07!

October 2, 2007

Geez, it has been WAYYY too long since I updated last... and so much has happened! I've started high school, a new charity, Double T is thriving; the list goes on and on! I figured after I got an e-mail from one of my best friends threatening that I'd better update the blog or else, that I should in fact find the time to update this thing!

I better start from the beginning. So yeah, I'm well into my second month of 9th grade at high school! It's a lot of fun, very different but the transition wasn't difficult. I'm also swimming on the Fresh/Soph and J.V. teams for swimming, which wraps up October 13th. (Hear that, babysitting clients? I'm once again on the market come the 14th!) I'm also in the show choir group, student council, and speech and drama club, plus I'm running for Freshmen Class Council President. Overall, high school's great, just very busy! With swimming, I leave for school at 6:30 a.m. and don't return home until 6:30 p.m.! On Mondays, which are show choir days, I don't get home for dinner till 8:45, if I'm lucky! PLUS--> HOMECOMING IS COMING UP, also the 13th! I just got my dress- I'll try and remember to post pictures this time =] !

Yeah, so a new charity! Any of you who check the website on a consistent basis may have noticed that not only have I changed it (check out the pictures from the 6th Annual backyard carnival!), but I've also added a page titled "Catch the Reading Bug" dedicated to our newest campaign. The idea of the program is, we donate NEW books to underprivileged children around the Chicagoland area, our first objective being to collect 220 new books to give to the Backstretch kids of Arlington Racetrack by the time they return to the track this upcoming summer. We donated about 70 books to the kids last summer, and we're hoping to collect enough for ALL of them this year! You can help this new program by donating new books- any kind of books--chapter, picture, the works! Since the families of the track are 100% Spanish, until around 1st grade most families are unable to read English, so Spanish picture books would be greatly appreciated. I know many schools support this program called "Book Orders", where students receive a packet of book choices for very low prices that they can buy and are then shipped to the child's school. We bought 70 books last time my little brother got a Book Order packet, for $0.99 a book! Check with your child's school and see if they support a program, and donate some books to us via that. I believe there is also a way to buy books from the program in Spanish.

On to Double T! Not only did we give a donation of 250 hygiene kits to an awesome organization called in Washington called Treehouse, but we also just donated 25 long-term hygiene kits to the Bolivian Street Children Organization a couple of days ago. I actually read a book on the same type of children that will be receiving our kits in Bolivia called "When Invisible Children Sing", and then wrote to the organization the book is based on. It's a great story, very moving, and I strongly recommend it. The only problems with these recent donations are as follows:

- We now are almost completely out of Double T supplies. We've had so many wonderful donors in the past couple of years, but now are literally incredibly lacking supplies to make the kits. See our Double T page for what we're in need of. When I have the time (swimming ends next week!), I'm going to go through my friend the Yellow Pages and write to local dentists for donations. In the mean time, though, anybody with connections-- please help us out! We'd love to continue helping, but can't if we don't have any donations!

- Next: While we loved donating to people as far away as Bolivia, we ran into a problem when shipping the 25 kits cost more ($125 for one box-- and that was at a reduced price- thanks Grandma!) than the kits themselves! If anybody knows of a way for us to get free or at least reduced shipping or stamps or whatever (we had to use my grandma's work to get the discount to Bolivia-- UPS on its own would of cost $400!), PLEASE e-mail me! Thanks!

On to "happier" subjects-- I recently got an e-mail from a teacher at St. Peters Lutheran School asking about me public speaking about charity work there. Woohoo! For those of you who know me well, you know that public speaking is another of my favorite things to do.

I also got an e-mail from a family whose daughter along with her two friends are holding a 9 year old birthday party. They are asking for their guests to bring books for Catch the Reading Bug! How awesome is it that children SO YOUNG are getting into the helping spirit?! Thanks girls! Keep it up!

Plus, we received two wonderful boxes from another one of my friend's at Zurich Insurance Corp. full of teddy bears for Something to Hold On To! We still need to schedule another delivery at Children's Memorial with my friend & nurse Mrs. Parise, but once my schedule slows downs hopefully STHOT will be thriving again! Thanks so much for the bears! They are BEAUTIFUL!

Thank you to everybody out there for the incredible encouragement and support. It is because of you guys that I continue Abby Horan Charities. You guys are incredible!

Thank you,
Abby Horan