Children Help Children Raise Money

When our son Jonathan moved to New York after his college graduation, it was bittersweet for us. Our son had survived cancer before he hit puberty, so it was hard to let him go now, nearly a dozen years after. Jon Jon had been an easy child to raise – he was a creative, fun boy with a ton of friends who endeared himself quickly to everyone he met. We figured he would be the same type of adult in New York City, so he wouldn’t be coming back to the burbs.

We had a lot of ideas for our near empty nest (we still had cats and dogs and a bird!). We could make that den my husband Paul had always wanted. Or we could make an extra office for me and my arts and crafts supplies. Either way, Jon wouldn’t be needing his room anymore – the couch had his name on it for his infrequent visits.

We had one more empty nest problem to deal with: Jonathan’s left behind Toyota Tercel. This car was old. Older than any car I’d ever kept – and almost never used. Jonathan didn’t come home too often during his undergrad studies, even though the plane ride was only one hour compared to the five that the west coast to New York City would be. His car literally sat for the majority of the year, until Jon decided to come drive it around to see his friends during the summer. The last summer he didn’t even stay for more than two weeks – we knew the Tercel had to go – garaging it wasn’t an option, we wanted to buy kayaks!

Finally we settled on an option, we decided we would donate a car for kids. It wasn’t hard to choose: our Jonathan had been a child cancer sufferer and survivor – we would donate the Tercel to a group that helped exactly the type of child we had. Hopefully we could help someone else’s family raise a boy like ours.