10th annual hope gala!

many moons ago (like, in the early 80s), my parents met stuart and shelby. my mom & shelby were working together at a hospital here in charlotte. stuart & shelby were just dating at the time. fast forward to marriage & babies, stuart & shebly had 3 girls, austin, holly, & hope. austin is leigh's age, holly is my age, and hope was a sassy little redhead about 4 years younger then holly & i. fast forward again to june of 2003 when hope, who was 12 at the time, was diagnosed with an extremely rare form of bone cancer. hope went to heaven on january 4th, 2004, a little over 6 months after they found the cancer in her knee.

when make a wish came to hope to grant her wish, she selflessly wished that all other 155 kids on the north carolina waiting list would get their wishes granted. hope realized she had already been blessed with so much in her short life. and hope couldn't understand why there were 8 year olds receiving chemo all alone in cold hospital rooms, because their parents couldn't afford to/weren't able to take any more days off of work.

the first ever hope gala was held just a few days after hope passed. between the gala & other fundraising, the city of charlotte raised $1.3 million dollars to grant all 155 wishes in just over 4 weeks. i still get chills every time i think about it.

the march forth with hope foundation (hope's birthday was march 4th) was started to raise funds to pay the "non-glamours" bills that often don't get paid when family members are sick. they pay mortgage payments, car payments, grocery bills, electric bills, etc. so every year, we continue to celebrate hope & continue to raise money to help the families who aren't as fortunate as the stouts were when hope was sick. this year's gala was a masquerade & was held at the beautiful ballantyne resort in south charlotte!

hope would have turned 22 last week. it's hard to believe this year was the 10th year we've been celebrating her life. thank you for your legacy, sweet hope!

 

{hermana}

i LOVED the menu cards under the clear chargers - genius! i am not normally a fan of serving pork to large amounts of people, but the ribs were great & they had a veggie option available for any non-pork eaters out there.

 

 

{bro & sis with john kasay - one of our all time favorite panthers}

 

 

 

{photo booth fun}