Help Stephen!
Donations are being accepted from anyone who would like to create handmade thank you cards on Stephen’s behalf. For every five cards sent to Bazzill, the maker will be entered into a drawing to win two FREE tickets to the last Creative Escape 2011 (travel and accommodations, not included). Cards must be received by July 1, 2011. Click here to download and fill out the entry form. Mail it along with the cards to:
Stephen’s Thank You Card Project/Bazzill Basics Paper
7001 W. Erie St., Ste. 2, Chandler, AZ 85226
Other prizes include:
A subscription to Scrapbooking & Beyond magazine, Paper Creations Magazine, or “Picture that sound” recording inserts for cards.
Details:
- A2 is the preferred card size. That is half of a piece of 8.5 x 11 cardstock (Bazzill, of course!) cut into a 4.25″ x 5.5″ strip and folded.
- It doesn’t have to be red, white and blue… it can be anything your heart desires as long as it is made with love!
- Do not use glitter! Be careful the card does not become too bulky.
- If you can send envelopes along with your cards, that would be appreciated. If not, Xpedx is going to be donating 20,000 envelopes to fill in the gaps.
- Yes, sign it. Imagine Stephen going back to sign 180,000 cards! We need to save his hand so he can play sports in his free time.
- Download the pdf entry form from the Creative Escape website, fill it in, and send one copy with every five cards. All the cards can be mailed together, but we will be using your paperwork to pull the name of the winner. You can fill it in once and make photocopies, if you’d like. For example, if you send 50 cards, include 10 entry forms.
- Send as many cards as you would like!
For the fifth year, Bazzill Basics Paper and Heidi Swapp are hosting Creative Escape…the ultimate scrapbook indulgence in Phoenix, Arizona on August 25 – 27. Over the past few years, the guests attending CE participate in raffles and live auctions raising more than $100,000 for charities including the American Cancer Society and the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society. This year, the fundraising element of the event is switching to a service project for U.S. troops overseas:
Boy making cards for 180,000 troops
Ten-year-old Stephen Goodman, a fifth-grader in Surprise, Arizona, wants to send a thank you card next to military personnel. Not to one platoon, or to just one division, but to every actively deployed service member in the U.S. military. Stephen said he thought of the idea while spending the summer with his grandparents in Phoenix. “My grandpa went to Vietnam and didn’t get any cards, and he felt forgotten,” he said. Stephen started locally, creating and hand-delivering 218 Fourth of July cards for patients at the Carl T. Hayden VA Medical Center in Phoenix. The feedback was so thrilling and positive that Stephen started thinking: Why not send one to everyone deployed? He began paying attention to news reports. Somewhere, he gleaned the number of overseas troops to be 180,000. “I was really taken aback when he said he wanted to do one for all the troops,” said Stephen’s father, Steven Goodman. “I explained to him it was a big project, and because of what his intentions were, he would have to carry it out.” Each thank you card is handmade, using “construction paper and scissor designs and markers and stickers and my imagination and that’s it.” according to Stephen. The entire family pitches in. So far, they’ve made about 15,000 cards. Vice President Joe Biden happened to catch Stephen’s story while traveling through Phoenix last August. Stephen got his own thank you in the mail. “It just said thank you for what I’m doing, the soldiers will appreciate it,” he remembered. The letter made Stephen’s summer. “It made me feel very excited to know that the vice president sent me something,” he said. When all 180,000 cards are done, the Goodmans plan to take them to Luke Air Force Base where they will be delivered overseas all at once to make sure no soldier is over looked.
– Original story by Amy B. Wang, writer for The Arizona Republic.