effortless ways to raise money for SOME

Okay, seriously. These are the easiest, most effort free ways to raise money for Special Olympics and you don't have to pay any type of membership fees or dues and you don't have to do anything that you aren't already doing. For about 5 seconds of your time you can raise money for our athletes daily. If you are reading this blog than you have access to a computer.

Here's a new easy way to raise money for Special O. Maine. Just start using Yahoo! powered GoodSearch.com as your search engine and they'll donate a penny to your favorite cause every time you do a search! In addition, do all of your shopping through their online shopping mall, GoodShop.com, where you can shop at more than 700 top online retailers and a percentage of your purchases will go to the charity you choose...US! You pay the same price as you normally would, but a donation goes to your cause!
Here's the web site — http://www.goodsearch.com. You can also read about GoodSearch in the NY Times, Oprah Magazine, CNN, ABC News and the Wall Street Journal.

I just changed my search engine to goodsearch. I am computer illiterate and it honestly took me less than one minute. After that I proceeded to search for 25 police departments and in just ten minutes I have already raised a quarter. With the amount of searching that my husband and kids do everyday for homework, hockey, WWE, Pokemon, Bass guitars and water powered SUV's we will be able to raise a ton of money for SOME. You can too.

In addition to Goodsearch we are also signed up with Charity Blast. charityblast.com is a web site with like 1000 businesses that we shop at every day and they have sales for people who shop through them and then portions of the money goes to SOME...if you chose us as your charity of choice. The holidays are coming and the economy stinks. It is recommended that you start your shopping now and do a little each week so that you don't go broke in Decmber and plus we can all use the discounts. Both of these web sites have no catches and no special fees. We all win. Life really is good!

Okay, where are the fans?

Greetings from my little dark office at the Special Olympics Maine state office. Yes, I am back in the office. After ten years of working full time in my home office, I have returned here and am working daily 9-3 and finishing my day at my home office. I will be here following the school calendar and home when the kids are home. I have to tell you, it is pretty strange. First of all, you have to look nice to work in an office. Ughh! No more sweat pants, and and makeup is now a must. Also, it is so quiet. I am used to working in chaos with two little boys screaming in the back ground. I have been thinking about maybe bringing in a spongebob video to play while I work so it feels more familiar. Anyway, enough about me. Let's talk about all of the exciting things happening out there in Special Olympics Land.

First of all, most of you have heard by now about the controversy surrounding the film Tropic Thunder. Before making a statement I actually went to see this film the day it opened. Controversy aside, it is still a bad movie and not worth the money. Tom Cruise was funny in his bit role and that was it. The rest was so foolish and rude and and actually boring. The controversial scenes were definitley just that. They depicted persons with intellectaul disabilties in a very demeaning way and they used the word "retard" over and over. anyone who cares about persons with I.D. would be greatly hurt and offended. If anyone wants to read my full review of the film just let me know and I will forward it to you. Anyway, we here at Special Olympics Maine do not condone the use of any terminology that is considered demeaning, dehumanizing, insulting or hurtful and we will do our best to educate others on the harmful effects of the usage of the "R-Word" if you would like to join us in our fight to end the use please visit http://www.r-word.org/ and take the pledge to put an end to it.

So, what else. It's been 9 months since I last posted. That is horrible and I apologize to those of you who have actually been following this blog. (I think there are 2 of you that I know of!) :)

Winter and Summer games rocked. Everything went really well. On Friday of Summer Games we did have to cancel portions of Opening Ceremonies due to rain but other than that things were great. The state swim meet took place in Lewsiton in the Spring. Always a very exciting event. Motor Activities took place at Yamouth academy. Now that is an event to see. Wow! Incredibly inspiring. The kids from NYA run the entire event which is very cool. There was actually this one kid there named Josh who had helped last year and loved it so much that he spent $200 of his own money to purchase equipment for the event. That is amazing! (I posted a photo of him with one of our athletes at the top of this entry.) In addition to these events we have completed our golf and sailing program (see photo of athlete Peter Brewster above as he prepares his boat for a sail) for the year and are heading in to soccer season and of course our annual Equestrian competition which is coming up this weekend in Skowhegan. Another incredible event.

The Maine Law Enforcement Torch Run is still going strong with members working hard for a big Fall sweep to bring us up to where we had hoped to be. It is amazing to me that they continue to work so hard for our program year after year. What an incredible group of people. The irving event was also very succesful despite the gas prices. Life is good. Really, it is.

Tomorrow most of our staff will be heading out to Camp Tall Pines for the annual Enterprise Golf tournament and auction. I will be spending the day at the Cumberland Fair selling tickets for a 2008, 105th anniversary edition Harley. (Only 2000 tickets printed and they are $20 each) I will be there from 9-2 if anyone wants to stop by, buy a ticket and bring me a cotton candy. (just kidding) We will have a crew at the Fryeburg fair next week as well. The drawing is october 10th so get your tickets now.

Thursday is the first day of our annual Celebrity Golf Tournament in Boothbay. Golfers can sign up to be on a team with a sports legend or hero. There is also a sports auction on Friday night and lobster bake which are open to the community. Call us for more info.

On a personal note, my boys are keeping me extremely busy. Jonah is in soccer, football, and cubscouts. (His team won their game this weekend 4-0 and Jonah got all 4 goals. Yes, I am totally bragging.) My 9 year old plays goalie for the Portland JR Pirates and recently won an MVP award at tournaments. He is also in Webelos. I am very proud of both of them. Isn't it weird, for those of you that know me, that I would have two boys who are so athletic and that I would be working for a sports program. Kind of makes you laugh.

Leave comments or let me know if you have something you want me to share on here. Have a great day. (I mean it)