Dear Friends and Family,

I was asked in November to participate in the GoSt.Louis half Marathon with a group of Todd’s friends honoring a friend that had passed away.  At first my response was no way – I can’t run 13 miles.  However, it kept coming to mind and I wondered if I could do it.  I seriously started thinking about it and thought maybe I could do this and decided to start to train for taking on this personal challenge and prove to myself that I could do it.  My prior boss, Randy, helped me with a training program (he does marathons) and gave me lots of encouragement. 

In December I added some 3 mile runs into my workouts (I usually just do the bike and stairs).  It wasn’t too bad and as I progressed through January and February I moved up to running approximately 17 miles a week and  March this will increase until I am running 5-6 miles three days a week and then doing a longer run on the weekend.  I will only run a total of 12 miles at one time during my training and then race day is the 13.1 miles (Sunday, April 15).  I have been training at about an 8 ½ - 9 ½ minute mile and my goal that day would be to finish in under 2 ½ hours. 

I wasn’t planning on telling anyone that I was running this but as I started my training program I had more time to myself and have really been thinking and praying a lot during this time.  I’ve been reflecting on all my blessings (even through all my struggles), praying for friends and family as well as doing a little dancing to my music. 

During this time I really started to think about also running and raising money for a charity too.  I thought about raising money for mental health issues or the boy scouts since those are close to my heart.  I decided to see what charities were out on the website for the GoSt.Louis event and came across a charity called Our Little Haven and I felt God tugging at my heart to run for that organization for 2 reasons:

1. I have been so blessed with resources to help me with areas that my family struggles with; but there are others that are less fortunate and this just seemed to fit the areas that were close to my heart based on the below:

Our Little Haven is an independent, 501-c3 organization founded in 1993, providing comprehensive care for more than 500 children annually through residential treatment, outpatient children’s mental health services, therapeutic preschool and foster care case management.

Our Little Haven is relentlessly committed to providing a safe, secure and healing environment for children suffering from the tragedy of abuse and neglect.  Our dedicated and compassionate community of care givers makes the hurting stop, the healing begin and the love last, one child at a time.

1. The second reason is that one of my mom’s best friends and my friend (Terry W.) is extremely involved in this organization and I thought how perfect -I could run and donate in honor of her dedicated service to these children since she is the real hero giving so much of her time and talents to them (my mom even helps out a little at Easter time too).

So, as you know, I am not a woman of few words so I wanted you to understand my thought process in how I came up with this charity. 

I would love if you could join me in supporting those that do struggle to find the resources to get help with children that may be a little different than the norm and Share God’s Blessings with these beautiful little children.

Thank you for your consideration!

If you would like to donate you can send me a check directly or you can go to the following link and donate on-line:

http://www.crowdrise.com/ShareGodsBlessings/fundraiser/tereselafeber

If you send me a check please make it out to Our Little Haven.

Don’t forget to include any company matching if applicable.

Blessings,

TereseLafeber