It it with a humble heart and much gratitude that I write this post today. As we wind down our services for the year, we are ending 2018 having exceeded my greatest expectations. Throughout this entire year we have seen the “power of we” in action as  people came together for a common cause with a sole focus on making seniors smile. We set a goal of 20,000 cards to be delivered in 2018 and blew that goal out of the water. We added more card artist angels, civic groups, schools and card decorators, all while making more connections than we ever thought possible. It was truly an incredible year.

One only need to take a look at our statistics to see the power of what we all accomplished together:

Total Cards Delivered 2018:  40,515

Total Community Deliveries:  515

Unique Communities:  208

Total Cards Delivered since March 2016 (Program Start): 67,044  (7,719 2016/18,810 2017)

Home Delivery Cards Mailed (Renee): 3,070 (through December 15th)

Special Community Cards Mailed (Liane): 5,266

Elderly Nutrition Programs (Meals on Wheels) served: 9 in 8 states

Michigan Deliveries (Diane): 9,898 (up from 3,539 in 2017)

School Partners:  30

Numerous Civic, and corporate decorating partners.

Not only did we expand our reach in terms of communities, we delivered to at least one community in all 50 states twice, as well as Puerto Rico. You can see a list of the communities that have received our cards on our website at bringsmilestoseniors.com/services.

On the heels of this amazing year I am encouraging all my volunteers to take the holidays and enjoy family and friends and just relax.  Those of us with full time jobs in addition to the program definitely need it and most definitely deserve it. During these last few days of the year we will have limited services. We will come back in 2019 refreshed and ready to exceed what we have manage to accomplish in 2018. This will also be my last blog post for the year so I can give my creative mind a rest. I will set some of our previous posts to repost for the remainder of the year.

All of us at Bring Smiles to Seniors wish you and your family the happiest of holidays. We have felt the love from all of you this year and we are thankful for all you have done to help make our little dream a big, BIG reality.

Have a great holiday and remember to be the reason someone smiles.

Ron

bringsmilestoseniors.com