Team Martina

It's not about a shirt

Team Martina is the embodiment of the messages and inspiration in Martina McBride’s music.

I’m just gonna spit out what I’m thinking today and put it out there.

Team Martina is awesome. It’s an awesome and inspiring thing to be a part of. It’s an amazing way of life. It’s one of the most sincere and beautiful things I’ve seen come along.

Here’s what it isn’t.

It isn’t concerts, t-shirts and meet & greets, prizes, awards or competitions and recognitions. It’s none of those things.  If you want a lot of those things, you may be in the wrong place. (Although it is fun to occasionally get a cool shirt to wear).

Team Martina doesn’t exist as just a website, Facebook page or Twitter page, or a forum. We’re a real group of friends, online and offline, that show up together to make a difference in the world. We work on real life, amazing, incredible projects to help others around the planet.

We’re different. We’re not just a fan group. None of us are here to sign up to get stuff. We don’t feel owed anything. We’re not keeping a running total.

It’s actually the opposite.

WE DO STUFF

Team Martina is a lot of work… hard work (but good work). As a team, we’re usually not waiting on something to be given to us. It’s great when that happens but we’re happy to do our own work, go our own way. We all pitch in together. We’ve got balls!! We make things happen.

We’re also here to cooperate together as a team, affirm and build each other up and not take each other down. If someone is hurting… the team rallies around them. We’re a family.

Team Martina is the embodiment of the messages and inspiration in Martina McBride’s music. We’re about taking the ideas and feelings you get from a song and helping something real and good to happen in the world because of it.

We’re here to bring value to Martina’s life and those around her… to win new fans to her music and to country music. We want to show just what the power of her music is doing in the world.  Above all, we’re here to help people.

YES! There are some rewards involved. They are incredible and rich… they don’t always involve prizes… they often involve experiences you’ll be remembering and smiling about for the rest of your life.

And guess what? That don’t cost a dime.

Team Martina is an all volunteer, nationwide and global, extreme team of country music fans helping the world and having a good time while doing it.

Moving to a new home with Martina McBride

By Sheila Jones

(Mobile blogging this morning from the road somewhere on the AL/GA border.)

This has been a monumental week! This week our volunteer team moved to a new home… And what a fantastic home it is. Martina is taking Team Martina under her wing and we couldn’t be more excited and honored. You can find a link to Team Martina under “Martina” now at the new http://martinamcbride.com/

There will be more content there about us soon. We have some awesome plans for the team this year so keep an eye out! Thank you Martina for this dream come true.

Team Martina has now raised 101,111.11 for good causes since we began in 2011.

This week was extra special… We awarded the Martina McBride Breast Cancer Grant to Vanderbilt Ingram Cancer Center. It was an amazing day giving a grant that Martina fans worked for months to raise money for. The money will be specifically earmarked for triple negative breast cancer research. We are helping to fund a brand new clinical trial that could save someone’s life. Thank you to the fans that made this happen and thank you for reaching out to touch people’s lives with the song, “I’m Gonna Love You Through It”.

This week we were also loving families through it.
We did a hands on service project for Nashville’s Ronald McDonald House. We had volunteers in the kitchen from 7 states and 2 countries to prepare a home cooked meal for the families staying there. This house provides a no or low coast home away from home for families who have children in nearby hospitals. We also raised $1,111 for this charity to help them help others.
Thank you Jim, Leighann, Phi, Tracy, Linda, Amy, Fabi, Amanda, Janna, and Laurie for working this project!!

This August we’ll be partnering with the Grand Ole Opry and Martina to honor cancer survivors and thrivers at http://www.survivorsconvention.com/
Check out “Team Martina My Second Act” and stay tuned very soon for more details on another Opry event we are planning!

We will be celebrating our 2nd birthday with an amazing event at the world famous Grand Ole Opry!! And of course we are going to use this opportunity to give back!

I had the most fun time at Martina’s fan club party this week. It was so good to get to hug and thank so many of you that have supported us. And thank you Tracy and Martina for everything!!

Get on our email list to get notified about these events… Email me at skjones2006@gmail.com

Be sure to watch us on Facebook at Team Martina and Twitter @TeamMartina2011

We're listening...with Martina McBride

By Sheila Jones

Big thanks to Martina McBride for her Facebook post yesterday inviting all women cancer survivors to participate with Team Martina on a very special project we’re hosting called “My Second Act”.

This is a unique project that goes right to very heart of what Team Martina is all about. When I first had the dream of forming a team like ours 2 years ago, it was to give every day people and country music fans a platform to do good in the world and have their stories heard.

That’s what I love so much about Martina McBride’s music…it tells MY story. It’s like she’s been listening to me all along and singing what I was thinking and feeling. That’s an incredible connection to feel. It’s empowering.

While getting to know country music fans and cancer patients over the last few years, I’ve been listening just as intently and I’ve heard and read hundreds and thousands of amazing, life changing stories.

Our aim with Team Martina is to be a platform for good in the world, to help people, to help good causes, and to empower country music fans to tell their stories and use those stories to help others.

Listening to someone is one of the best gifts you can give them. That’s what we want to do for women cancer survivors this summer as we partner with the National Women’s Survivors Convention in Nashville.

There will be some amazing stories and amazing people that we hear and meet through this project and I can’t wait.

“The most basic of all human needs is the need to understand and be understood. The best way to understand people is to listen to them.”
― Ralph G. Nichols

http://www.survivorsconvention.com/my-second-act.asp

Will it matter 20 years from now?

So last time I blogged I wrote about how my parents didn’t attend my high school graduation all those years ago. Having something like that happen has got to take the wind out of your sails…right? Or does it?

This blog I want to tell you about who WAS there.

I had one person in the audience for me the night I graduated from high school. Her name was Joyce and she was a distant friend of a friend of my family. She had vaguely known me about 2 years.

How many people are willing to take a child in? A teenager that isn’t theirs? There are those people. Joyce was one of them. And she forever changed the outcome of many people’s stories (many she would never meet)… for decades into the future. Because she went out on a limb and took a chance…on me.

Yes, something you do today can make a difference 20 years from now!

She didn’t just take a chance and take in a homeless child. She tested and taught. She set about to train that child not to give up. She worked at instilling tenacity, confidence, bravery, and a healthy dose of humility in me.  And she convinced me that I was suppose to do something big. But above all she convinced me that I could help people.

Joyce never met Taira Baughman, Martina McBride, or any of my Team Martina teammates. She never met any of the cancer patients or families we have volunteered for. Joyce passed away last September. But if you have spent time with me or worked with me… then you have met Joyce. And anything good that has happened was because Joyce gave a homeless child a place to stay in 1989. It was all a part of the divine plan.

Tomorrow, May 29, would have been Joyce’s 75th birthday.

Our group, Team Martina, is out to do big things in the world to love people through life challenges like cancer.  We’re excited to be a part of The National Women’s Survivors Convention this summer in Nashville and be a part of the Grand Ole Opry.

My parents didn't attend my high school graduation

Ok I have something painful and embarrassing to reveal…My parents chose to skip my graduation ceremony from high school. It happened 23 years ago yesterday. It was one of the most painful moments of my life. No matter if they did it out of spite, revenge, or to prove a point, it still stings to this day. My mom said it was a situation of a battered wife only doing what her husband allowed her to do. My father said it served me right for speaking out against his abuse.

It’s hard to fathom. It was such a selfish thing to do. You’ve heard the saying, “will this matter in 20 years?” By not attending their only child’s graduation they left something very sad behind 20 years later. That was always my parents biggest problem… Not marital problems or that they couldn’t get along, it was selfishness. They just couldn’t see outside of themselves.

What a terrible prison to be locked in…inside yourself.

Yesterday I attended the funeral of a young mom lost to cancer. She was only 40 and had 4 kids. In her final year I watched her countless times reach and give and lead others to get outside of themselves and their own problems and pain…helping them break out of their own self made prisons. She refused to be inprisoned herself, even by cancer.

Countless people have told me that Taira and volunteering to help others with Team Martina made them a better person. They told me that they now see things differently and do things differently. They get outside themselves and their own problems… And often…Like magic… Their own fears and problems melt away.

That’s been a big life goal of mine, to create and be involved in something that does that. It’s the ultimate problem solver!

Taira will miss 3 of her kids high school graduations in person. She got to see one. But I guarantee you she will be there in spirit.

Video shoot with Martina

Guest Blog by Taira Baughman
(This is what Taira wrote on Facebook almost 2 years ago about making the “I’m Gonna Love You Through It” video)

“Yesterday was amazing. I wanted to make sure to record this in my Carepages because I don’t ever want to forget the day, like that is even possible. I am posting this on FB in a note for those that do not follow my carepages.

We showed up at Percy Priest Lake at 11:00am. I had to fill out release forms for me and the kids to participate. They immediately escorted us into one of Martina’s make-up trailers. There were two of them on the site. It was nice and cool in there which was a blessing because it was SUPER HOT outside. I sat in a makeup chair with a lighted mirror, just like you see on TV. They had a basket of snacks and Braydon was able to watch cartoons while we waited for our portion of the shoot to begin. A makeup artist did touchups on me before we went back outside for the interview.

When they called us they took us into a really pretty wooded area. Cameras were all set up, with lighting equipment. I was excited to see that the cameramen were using the EXACT same cameras that we use with our company. That was pretty awesome. They did however, have some really expensive lenses and attachments that I have not been able to purchase. I had to try and find a way to check out of video geek mode. They sat me in a chair and begin to ask me questions about my cancer journey. The kids stood off at the side at first. I told my story and many times found myself tearing up. I sat there and just reveled in the entire experience. It was amazing. I couldn’t believe I was here. They had several hundred people apply to do what I was doing at that very moment. They only chose eight to actually interview. Some of the others were chosen to come back that evening to shoot a very special scene in the video. I’ll get to that later. My friend Sonya who wrote the song was in the hospital. She had just given birth to her first born son the night before. In the midst of all of this she managed to find time to call the producers and ask them to please consider my family. I really felt that was the extra nudge needed to involve me in the project. Sonya has been such an amazing friend and support to me. I am so humbled and honored.

Ok….back to the story. After they did my interview they asked if any of the kids wanted to speak. Breanna was scared to death. She was so nervous before we went on so, I knew that she would not want to speak. Josh was nervous too and Braydon well, he was too little. My movie star Jaclyn was more than willing. She is excited because if they use any of her footage she will be able to put a Martina Mcbride video on her resume. For those that don’t know it she is pursuing an acting career. This is an awesome opportunity. She did an amazing job with the interview, no surprise there.

After the interview they then shot some B-roll footage. They got a close up of my necklace and some really sweet shots of Braydon and I kissing each other while he held his little pink cancer book. My friend Denise Trice bought him a book called “When Your Mom Has Cancer”. It has been a great took in trying to explain some of this to him. The camera men loved the book and took lots of shots of Braydon and I with it. It was so amazing to be sharing this with my kids. They also took some great shots of all of us together smiling and just enjoying the moment. I can’t wait to see the final edit.

After we finished the shoot we started back to the car. The producer stopped us and said to me, “I know you volunteered to do this interview for free, but we wanted to give you something”. She handed me a nice crispy bill and walked away. I was not expecting that at all. I decided right then that I was going to take my family to dinner after the shoot on Martina. We don’t get to go out too much anymore and we had a lot to celebrate.

We went home for a few hours and I kept texting Rob. I was praying he would get off work in time so that he could join us for the second 1/2 of the shoot. Praise God he got there just in time. I can’t document as much about this part of the shoot because we were sworn to secrecy. They did allow us to take some photos but we can’t post any photos online that give away any portion of the shoot. You will have to watch the video. I can share them after the video is released.

Here is what I can share now:
It was HOT. Crazy hot but oooooh so fun. There were people everywhere. Rob and I were able to be in a few scenes just the two of us and the kids were being used as extras while we were busy. It was so much fun. We were there several hours. As the sun went down it started to cool down some. I bumped into Lilly Isaacs (Sonya’s mom) she was so sweet. She gave me the biggest hug and we talked for a little while until the director called everyone back to work. You couldn’t get the smile off my face.

The last part of the shoot was on the edge of the Percy Priest lake. The sunset was so beautiful and then I turned around and walking on the set just like she it was nothing was Martina. She stopped right in front of us and stood with a group of people. She turned around and made eye contact with me and smiled. Her eyes sparkled and she was so genuine and sweet. She said hello to me and I said hi back. Then she turned back around and faced the cameras to listen to the director. Inside I was screaming. This is soooo cool. I looked at Breanna and I started cracking up. She was standing there with her jaw on the ground. The funniest face ever.

We had so much fun with the shoot. It was emotional and beautiful as they honored all the cancer survivors. I teared up more time than I can remember. There were funny moments, sentimental moments & a lot of grateful moments. Anyone that knows Jaclyn knows that she loves to be sarcastic. We were taking pictures of the video (the part that is a secret) and she said really loud….”You could sell those to people magazine”. She was kidding and being her sarcastic self but I could have killed her. Martina wasn’t five feet from us. She never turned around though. I told Jaclyn, “Girl your sarcasm is going to get you in trouble one of these days. That’s like saying the word bomb at the airport.”. We teased her the rest of the night about that. She won’t soon live that one down.

We ended the night with dinner at the Outback. We laughed and reflected on the entire day. I sat there looking at my beautiful family, and pondered on just how rich I am. Yes, once again I teared up. There are no words that will ever be able to express the joy I felt at that moment. God has been so good to me and the blessing just keep pouring in. I will never forget this experience.

The single to the song was released July 25th. Look for it and request it often from your local radio station. “I’m Gonna Love You Through it”.
The video is expected to be finished late August. I will let you all know when I hear more.”

"This gives me chills"... our latest newsletter

Team Martina is a group of country music fans volunteering nationwide to make a difference in the world!

I see so many incredible things happening with our group. The last time I sent out a newsletter last month, one of the replies that came back was “this gives me chills”. Wow, I hope we continue to touch the world like that.  Here goes…

Our teammate Lori in PA is spear heading an effort to raise $25,000 for childhood cancer research by selling lemonade!! She’s already up to $15K. She leads one of the largest lemonade efforts in the nation for the Alex’s Lemonade Foundation. Her event ends soon on June 8. Check out her page http://www.alexslemonade.org/mypage/89350.

Some anonymous Team Martina members from around the world recently made some incredibly generous donations to a cancer patient in TN… namely an amazing motorized wheelchair/scooter was donated to someone who has lost most of her mobility. A kitten was also donated to her son to cheer him up. Her husband said she sat up for the first time in days when she saw the scooter. Thank you and God bless you to these people who perform these random acts of kindness.

I have heard of numerous meals and gifts being sent or delivered by Team Martina members to families going through tough times around the country.

Someone in WV ordered a pizza to be delivered to a struggling family in TN. A cancer patient in IN received a care package of Martina’s music sent from Alabama. A Team Martina member delivered gifts and sang in Boston at a benefit for the children’s hospital there.
A group of Martina fans organized a fundraising effort that raised over $800 to provide care for homeless animals in Georgia.

Several Team Martina members participated in Relay For Life events in 3 different states last weekend assisting communities in raising over $100K for cancer causes.

Next month, to kick off CMA Fest, I believe that Martina fans will be one of the first fan groups to celebrate this country music festival by giving back!  We’ll actually be in the kitchen at the Ronald McDonald House in Nashville cooking for families who have sick children.

Over 70 fans have walked a cumulative 400 miles in the last couple of weeks as a symbolic show of support for a young Mom in TN in the final stages of breast cancer. https://www.facebook.com/events/278095958992671/

Michelle in GA celebrated one year cancer free yesterday. And we are praying for someone else in our family right now going through a very scary and tough time http://teammartina11.tumblr.com/post/50465007973/how-going-to-the-veterinarians-office-saved-my

And last but not least, we are making plans to help support the National Women’s Survivors Convention. Check it out  http://www.survivorsconvention.com/

Stay tuned to our Facebook and Twitter… you will be continually amazed at the things happening.  I know I am…
https://www.facebook.com/TeamMartina
https://twitter.com/teammartina2011

How going to the veterinarian’s office saved my life…well kinda sorta!

Guest Blog By Michelle Blair

Last year, March 2012, my daughter, Kayla, and I were taking her cat to the vet for a routine office visit. While we were waiting for the doctor to come into the patient room, Kayla noticed an unusual spot on the back of my left arm. I had also noticed it too, but really thought nothing about it. She really insisted I make a dermatology appointment immediately. For the entire of month of April 2012, I still ignored her advice. I finally gave up and took her recommendation and made myself an appointment with my dermatologist, May 4, 2012. On May 8, 2012, I was diagnosed with in situ melanoma (stage 0). May 10, 2012, I made an appointment with a surgeon. May 14, 2012, I had surgery for an excision. May 18, 2012, I was told all margins were clear.

Even though I had stage 0 skin cancer, the word cancer is a scary word to hear no matter what. I cried for several hours and blamed myself for not taking better care of myself.  I was also disappointed with myself because I knew that I now carried a direct line, to my two daughters, of melanoma! They would forever have to tell their own doctors they have a family history of melanoma. How awful of me as their mother!

I know it was completely my fault for not taking better care of myself. Being a teen in the 80’s, I wanted to be tan like my girlfriends. I was always jealous of their beautiful glows. I did a lot of crazy things to acquire a “perfect” tan. First of all, I am a blue-eyed, fair-skinned girl who freckles very easily and burns quite easily too. In my teens, I would lay out on my roof with baby oil or cooking oil…literally baking my skin. As I got a little older, I was a regular at many tanning beds and for many years. I kept telling myself “the tanning bed is much safer than the real sun.” I was really addicted to the warmth and the color the sun was giving me. Well, it was with this stupidity of mine that led me to the diagnosis of melanoma.

It has been a year today since my melanoma surgery. I currently have a 2.5 inch “badge” scar on the back of my left arm. I show off my scar with pride, not for my stupidity on my part, but for awareness for others that might have done the same crazy things I did as a teen and as an adult. I have gained a lot of wisdom about sunscreens and the many tanning lotions on the market. I still “love” the warmth of the sun and the glow it gives, but I also know I must wear sunscreen to protect myself from the harmful rays of the sun. I get spray tans every now and again for special occasions and think this is so much better than the awful peeling and itching that comes with a sunburn…why didn’t I discover this years ago? Lotions and spray tans are so much better for my skin…duh! And I won’t look like really old lady when I am an old lady!

I recommend visiting a dermatologist once a year for a full body skin check! I have had to go every three months since my diagnosis and am now at the six month visitation schedule. If my next visit is positive, I go back to annual appointments. My skin checks take about twenty minutes. It is the best twenty minutes I can give to myself.

So, going to the veterinarian’s office saved my life…kinda sorta! I actually have my daughter, Kayla, to thank for being persistent in me going to the dermatologist. And her cat too, I guess…haha! God works in mysterious ways and I must say this was one mysterious way.  

Michelle Blair
May 14, 2013

This must be what a song writer feels like

I’ve spent much of the last 24 hours driving around… visiting the small towns and fundraising events where I started raising money to fight cancer years ago. Reconnecting with friends and recalling the first time we ever met and how hard we’ve all worked to end cancer and help each other.

Many times someone has come up to me in the last 24 hours to shake my hand and say, “I’ve been watching the things happening with Team Martina and I am so proud of you”.  It makes me blush. I’m so proud of this team and I am so grateful for these old friends too who made me feel like family when I first started volunteering alongside them. They showed me how to do it.

I’ve had several “It’s A Wonderful Life” moments this week… as we call them at my house. Someone told me last night that they had decided to pursue a new career because of ideas that they got from watching Team Martina. Someone else told me that they went on a trip as a volunteer to help children in another country and they wanted me to know because it was something I had discussed with them years ago.

Wow, this must be what a song writer feels like when they see the impact of an idea that they put out in the world. It’s so wonderful when people connect and really get what you’re trying to do and want to do it with you.

Team Martina and Alex's Lemonade Stand

                              By Sheila Jones

I can’t tell you how incredibly proud and amazed I am every time I look around at what our teammates and Martina McBride fans are doing in their own home towns all over the country to help people.

Alex’s Lemonade Stand was born out of a grass roots effort by a little girl who was lost to cancer in 2004. She sold lemonade in her front yard to raise money for childhood cancer research. Her effort turned into a beautiful event that is now world famous.

Now fundraising events called “Alex’s Lemonade” take place all over the country. Our teammate, Lori, along with her family, started one of these fundraisers in the Pittsburgh area a few years ago. Incredibly, their effort has raised right at $50,000 for childhood cancer research and she’s working on raising another $25,000 this month. She has an entire festival planned around it on June 8 in Cranberry Township, PA.

The event her family has put together has been so successful it earned the “Grand Stand” designation from the national Alex’s Lemonade Foundation which means it’s one of the biggest in the entire U.S. And they will also host several children who are fighting cancer to a fun day out at the event.

Lori and her family also participated in our Sound Check For A Cure in Morgantown, WV, this year to raise money for the Martina McBride Breast Cancer Grant.

Check out this amazing and incredible effort that Lori and her family are making in PA. It will blow your mind what a few people and a lot of love can make happen. Fundraising is happening right now until June 8.

http://www.alexslemonade.org/mypage/89350

Life is short. Be different and unexpected.

Our teammate Taira sent out a blog yesterday that told us that her doctors think she has about 2 months to live. That’s pretty devastating news.

Taira is one of our first team members and one of the first people I approached to help me do fundraising and volunteer work. Her cancer was in remission when we met. We haven’t even known each other quite 2 years yet.

But in that short time, we’ve tackled some huge projects with this team in and outside of the music world and figured how to do some amazing things. It has definitely all been uncharted territory.

We’re very different people, but I think, when we met, we both immediately recognized the one way in which we were exactly alike.

We don’t go away, quit, or back down easily.

And THAT will take you far.

1. It really bugs me when someone says, “I can’t do this thing because I have never done this thing before and I don’t know how to do this thing”.

If there is one thing I have learned in creating Team Martina… there is almost nothing you can’t figure out. With all the technology we have around us, there are almost no wheels you have to re-invent. Information is everywhere.  If you can’t find information on how to do the thing, most likely you can think up and create a way to do the thing.      If you really really want to.    

(Especially if it’s good for people and the world).

2. Don’t keep trying the same things over and over expecting different results. I can’t tell you how many times I have had something not work out and I’ve needed to “recalculate” as the GPS says. For every success, there are probably a few failures behind it. Look for another way… if at first it’s not obvious… wait… it may reveal itself or you may suddenly see it.

3. Don’t be afraid to give things away for free, no strings attached. Contrary to popular belief in the business world, we don’t all have to walk around with hidden agendas, gunning for how we can make a mutually beneficial deal or make money. It’s ok to just put good stuff out in the world. It doesn’t always have to come with a price tag or pay back.

Your reward will come to you.

4. Remember the big picture, don’t let all the little details get you bogged down. One thing I’ve learned about little details… 1. They will drive you crazy if you let them 2. They will probably work themselves out 3.Things turn on a dime and sometimes the little details become irrelevant before you even get to them

5.Throw off defeat… just keep moving. How many times have I imagined myself doing that cool little spin that ball carriers do to evade a tackle on the football field.

6. Sometimes there are things that just aren’t meant to be. If there is one thing I have learned, it’s that if something just doesn’t work, don’t spend too much time spinning your wheels. Stop. Probably something else is coming that you don’t know about yet. A new door will open. It will probably be better than what you were working on.

7. Most people and organizations have a hard time thinking outside of themselves and their own needs. It’s just human nature. Next time, try to think of how you can offer value to someone that isn’t offering you something - people won’t believe you. (I called up an organization a few weeks ago and offered to drive 2 hours to meet them and give them help free of charge… no strings attached. They didn’t believe me. At first they said yes, but then they canceled.  It was just outside of the “norm” in their world.”

These are 7 things that I think Taira and I saw when we first met and read each others minds.

Team Martina is a shining example of all these things - different, unexpected, unselfish.

Life is short. Be different. Do good stuff. Make a legacy where you can. Make people smile.

"Show Me" - another song title comes full circle

                                   By Sheila Jones

Martina McBride has a song called “Show Me”.

“Like a thousand red balloons in a saphire sky
A Roman candle burnin’, burnin’ through the night
Like the pyramids in Egypt
The diamonds in your eyes
Show me
Show me what love is”

About 5 years ago I started doing a lot of work around cancer causes.       Then the bottom fell out.

I knew I had to be doing the right thing because I felt so called to it. But it sure was painful.

I was working in strange and unfamiliar circumstances in a place that somehow seemed all wrong.  I constantly ran into obstacles and chased dead ends. I have to admit that I lost a little faith that people were good.

But something inside kept telling me to just keep going… this was a refining process. I was on the right track. Something incredible was coming…

Just

Hang

On

Then in 2009, God showed me… revealing pieces of the puzzle. He took me to Central America to serve in an orphanage for homeless children.  He SHOWED me.

Me and the kids at Casa Alleluia in Guatemala

In 2011 he took me to the Middle East to serve adults and children made homeless by civil war and ancient conflicts.  He SHOWED me the BIGGER PICTURE. He showed me countries where bombs explode and people are saved every week.

Me and my team at the Lebanese border

Then he brought me back to cancer volunteering with a renewed spirit.
He brought me a heroic volunteer group of friends of which the likes I had only ever read about and dreamed of… Team Martina.

And then he brought us cancer survivor Taira Baughman.

I swear I had never met so many people in real life that I think really, secretly wear capes. They are heroes. As much as I tell you about what they publicly do… there is more good that happens anonymously… that you may never know about.

And it’s purely amazing. You may not believe until you are shown it.

So thank you for renewing my faith that people are really, really good. There is still a lot of bad in the world… but God “SHOWED me” … what love is and that people can be very very good.

And we still have the ability to literally change the world.

WATCH “Show Me” by Martina McBride

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3GcDyHT0I4E

Shouts From The Peanut Gallery!

Team Martina has been blessed over the last 2 years with incredible support from hundreds of country music fans. One of which is our special teammate Amy. She has been the backbone of Team Martina. Since 2011 she has helped to raise thousands of dollars for cancer research.

Amy has done some amazing things in that time… she has shaved her head not once, but TWICE… as a show of solidarity with cancer patients and to bring attention to our efforts to raise money and help cancer fighters around the U.S. With Amy’s help, every step of the way, we have raised $100,000 for cancer causes.

Here’s something else even more amazing, yet sad… in the time that we have been Team Martina, Amy has lost her Mom to cancer. And recently she lost her 3 year old dog to cancer. I am dumbfounded by this turn of events.

Last week a group of friends got together to do something very special in memory of Amy’s dog “Peanut Ann”. They started a fundraising effort for the Animal Rescue League Of Northwest Georgia that will provide help for homeless animals. This organization is in desperate need of funds as it is run solely on donations.

I am incredibly touched and proud of the spirit these fans are showing. Thank you Carolyn Bryant and Pearl Roth for your efforts on this project.

Please visit their fundraising page here and consider giving even just $10 or $20 or more. It’s for a great cause. Let’s hear from the Peanut Gallery!!

LET’S RETURN THE INCREDIBLE SPIRIT AND EFFORT BACK TO AMY that she has shown in the fight against cancer for so many others!

http://pearl-roth.com/The-Peanut-Gallery/

Because hope does matter... her book landed in a country music video!

The Music of Hope          Guest Blog By Maryann Makekau

In 2001, my husband and I opened our home to help parents of struggling teens. At first, we weren’t even sure that anyone would come. We did it Anyway. For seven years, we ate together and prayed together. The bulk of our time, however, was spent just listening and taking turns being the shoulder to lean on. One by one, those teens, and their parents, rose above the struggles. Another seven years passed before I understood how helping hurting families was actually paving the way for something more.

In December 2008, I received a phone call that changed my life course. My best friend’s voice was barely audible as she spilled the words, “I have cancer.” I choked back the tears as Vicki continued. “No one ever talked about my mom’s fight with cancer. I want my kids to know, but I don’t want to scare them.” My heart sank as I listened—hearing confusion, worry, fear, and sadness—colliding all at once. I went from helplessness to hopefulness in a matter of seconds, as I promised to find the perfect book to help her and her 2nd graders.

I’d spent over twenty years researching and writing in the mental health field. With 1 in 8 women diagnosed, my friend’s situation was sadly common. According to the U.S. Department of Labor more than 81% of primary educators are women, and with children spending an average of seven hours a day with their teacher, surely someone had created a resource. I wasn’t prepared to come up empty-handed in my search for a book that honestly, but gently, explained a teacher’s cancer diagnosis to children.

I was wrong. I found only two books. One talked about cancer as if the teacher was taking a mini-vacation, gone for awhile and then back in the classroom – all better. Another one overwhelmed me with confusion; I simply wanted a book that explained cancer through a child’s eyes. That’s when fate stepped in and my friend’s aspirations for my life became clear. For twenty-five years, Vicki had been encouraging me to write a book, saying I had a gift I was supposed to share. Convicted, I sat down and wrote When Your Teacher Has Cancer.

Next thing I knew, I was sitting in her classroom explaining cancer through a little book on pink paper. I didn’t know if they would understand the tools that I presented. If fact, I didn’t even know if they’d understand my explanation of cancer. I didn’t know if it would mean anything to anyone, other than my best friend. I did it Anyway. I now volunteer my time inside support groups around the nation.

After two series of books and countless advocacy events, it’s clear that volunteering to help hurting families over a decade ago was, in fact, paving the way to something more. I haven’t had cancer; I haven’t been deployed to war; I haven’t had Alzheimer’s disease. Yet, I am willing to walk beside those who have. Choosing to love them through it furthers understanding and magnifies hope. In Sheila’s words, “it’s our opportunity to do good in the world.” Team Martina is changing lives with that philosophy. Just as music soothes the soul, compassion soothes the heart.—that’s the music of hope. That is what I have been called to do with my life.

Maryann is an author, inspirational speaker, and spirited entrepreneur. She is also a veteran, spouse of a military member (retired), and mother of two military “brats.” Her book, “When Your Mom Has Cancer”, appeared in the Martina McBride music video, “I’m Gonna Love You Through It”. 

http://becausehopematters.com/books/when-your-mom-has-cancer/

Loving them through it... no strings attached

I’m sitting here on this Easter night contemplating this question… “What does it really mean to love someone through it?” and “How far are you willing go to love them through it and what exactly is involved in that?”. 

That’s the whole idea behind Team Martina… we’re a community service group and we’re a family of friends founded on the basis of “loving people through” cancer, crisis or other challenges. That’s what we’re all about. That’s what Martina McBride’s song, “I’m Gonna Love You Through It”, talks about. That’s what The Isaacs wrote the song about.

But how many of us have really stopped to consider how far we may have to go with that?  I bet not many of us.

Just what kind of commitment are we talking here?

Overcoming cancer can take a long time and some times the end result is not what we had prayed for after all. And, in the interim, things can get pretty hard. Even those of us who may be just visiting in the life of a cancer patient, and not directly involved in the day to day struggle of fighting cancer, may not appreciate the level of commitment, understanding, and love required even of us bystanders.

Let us, for a few minutes, remember that we’re all dying. We all have a terminal condition. We have all been dying since the moment we were born. The Bible says in James 4:14 that we are like vapor… a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. We cannot even say what our tomorrow holds. Everything in this life is temporary.

I thoroughly believe that the basic purpose of our lives here on Earth is about serving each other and making this world as best as we can - to move onto an incredible eternity with God, our permanent home. I don’t feel like we can attach too much importance to anything on this Earth. This is just a gateway… our end goal and home is beyond. We’re on a journey… together.

So if indeed we all have a terminal illness then we’re all loving each other through it everyday aren’t we?  So how do we do that? How do we treat each other every day with more and more understanding as we move through this life?

How do we become more and more understanding with someone suffering through something like cancer as the months, weeks, and years go by, when the struggle grows long, when the rubber meets the road, their body grows weaker, when the money runs out, when we get tired… after the music stops and the song is no longer playing and we don’t feel inspired… how long are you willing to hang in there for someone battling cancer?

Our friend and cancer patient Taira says that when you do something to help someone, you will get double for your trouble… this saying is inspired by a passage in the Bible meaning God promises to restore to you what you have lost and give you even more. But what if you don’t get something back right away for your trouble?  Are you anxiously waiting for that “something”… your reward? Or are you comfortable just helping someone and expecting nothing in return?

I think we’re all hoping deep down that we get something.. don’t you? Very few of us can totally let go all the time of the desire for some kind of recognition or reward. It feels really good to make that connection… to participate in a good deed and see that… YES!… it really resonated with people and made a difference and they liked it.

We give gifts to friends to not only just give them something… but we also get the reward of connecting with them, making them smile… it makes us feel good. We get something back in that way. It’s human nature to want that. That’s a big part of what draws people to do volunteer work and do good deeds… we all speak of how ‘rewarding’ it feels.

I think that often that reward is out there, it just may not be in the form we expect or come in the time we expect. And as we mature, we do learn to savor and enjoy the satisfaction of simply helping someone and letting it go… letting that good deed go out into the universe with no strings attached.

It is very freeing to be “no strings attached” in our life and in our giving. Free yourself from that burden and enjoy the rewards.

“The true meaning of life is to plant trees, under whose shade you do not expect to sit.” - Nelson Henderson

“I have found that among its other benefits, giving liberates the soul of the giver.”
Maya Angelou

Team Martina dresses up in a bunny suit?? Yes, they did!

Team Martina members have been hard at work across the country preparing and delivering Easter baskets to hospital and cancer center patients including kids at All Children’s Hospital in Florida and La Bonheur Children’s Hospital in Kentucky.  Teammates spent the last couple of months collecting donations of comfort items to help children and adults smile while they are recovering.

Thank you team for your beautiful and amazing work!

Here’s the report from Kentucky:

“Team members Tammy Copenhagen and Pam Rogers connected with family, friends and co-workers who are dear to their hearts by providing Baskets of Blessings.  Pam even dressed in a bunny suit!! Because there were so many who have recently been diagnosed with cancer, they felt God led them to reach out to those special people offering encouragement and support while loving them through it.  They visited individuals in their homes and felt that they received the greater blessing by witnessing the heartfelt thankfulness each conveyed with a smile and tears.  They also delivered Baskets of Blessings to friends who are in the hospital.”

Teammates Leigh-Ann, Jim, and Ashley also delivered baskets in Florida today to a children’s hospital and hospice center… an experience they describe as being very emotional. Thank you to the veterans at American Legion 125 in Clearwater for all their donations and help with this project and for the many donors from around the country who made it possible!

He ran the Olympic torch through Nashville & now he runs for Team Martina

                      By Sheila Jones

Hundreds of fans and friends have supported and donated to projects with our “extreme team” of do-gooders, cancer fighters, and country fans called Team Martina.

Jonathan is a “rocket scientist” by profession. He has a bachelors and masters degree in engineering and, during his career, he designed parts of the International Space Station… that’s right! Something he built is up in space right now. He also knows his way around the inside of a helicopter, what makes a missile tick, and he carried the Olympic torch in Nashville.

Even more than this…he’s an amazing man who, in his spare time, builds wheelchair ramps for the handicapped and elderly. In addition to his work with Team Martina, he volunteers his time and expertise to a non profit organization in Alabama called C.A.S.A. that helps people who are home-bound and in need. He designs and builds ramps for wheelchairs and does weatherization of homes for the elderly. Jonathan also volunteers his time at a homeless shelter.

Jonathan lost one of his best friends to cancer at the young age of 40… which started several events in motion that eventually led to the formation of Team Martina.

Team Martina has been incredibly blessed by Jonathan… he has helped to organize a benefit concert, sell tickets, move furniture, carry boxes, drive countless miles back and forth between Nashville and Alabama, and he’s raised thousands of dollars for cancer research… not to mention… he’s our biggest cheerleader that you may have never met.

Thank you Jonathan for helping us in so many ways and for also carrying the torch for Team Martina.

Learn more about us at TeamMartina.com

Amazing story from Leigh-Ann delivering Easter baskets to cancer patients in Florida

“With 6 more days until we deliver Easter Baskets to the children on the cancer floor at All Children’s Hospital, we have been so blessed through the wonderful people down here in St. Petersburg, FL.

The American Legion opened their arms to us, the Commander was more than grateful to let us leave donation boxes and we received cash donations from them, as well as many others.

I went to the store today to pick up some last minute items and the clerk asked me about them. I went on to explain my story about being a member of Team Martina and what we do and how the items were for the children on the Cancer Floor and the Hospice unit at Bayfront Hospital. The clerk asked the cashier to wait a minute, and then he comes back with Easter Baskets, stuffed animals, candy and games - on top of what I had bought. He paid for them and handed them to me and said “God Bless”. I gave him a big hug. He went on to tell me he lost his wife one year ago last Easter. And he wanted to pay it forward, he said his wife always loved Easter.”

Learn more about us at TeamMartina.com

Teammates help The American Cancer Society

Our team members Kim and Karen were out yesterday in PA helping The American Cancer Society with their daffodil sale to raise funds for cancer research and services. You never know where Team Martina’s gonna show up!

Team Martina Takes On Autism... And More!

Our teammate Abby Phillips went from radio to hero for special kids in Pittsburgh

By Sheila Jones                                        

Over the last couple of years I have discovered that Team Martina is indeed a group of very talented, generous, and special people who go the extra mile in life for others. Today I’d like to highlight a special teacher and teammate who not only works to help us defeat cancer but also makes a huge difference in the lives of some special kids everyday! And she’s a huge Martina McBride fan…

From Abby Phillips:

“My name is Abby Phillips and I am a 33 year old teacher for the Pittsburgh Public Schools. When I graduated from college back in 2002 with a Communications degree, I was ready for a career in movies and radio. I completed my internship at Y108, the country music station here in the city, but no jobs were available. After a year with no luck of finding a job in my field of study, a friend of mine turned me to teaching. I got a job as a Para-educator. My job was to accompany students with disabilities to class and work with them on a one on one basis, fulfilling their everyday needs in order to be successful in the classroom. I fell in love with the job and the kids!! So for the last 10 years I have worked at different schools giving my all every day for kids who sometimes don’t get support at home or from others.

I loved it so much that I went back to school 3 years ago and got my Masters in Education Degree to become a full time teacher! I currently work at Conroy School which is a school for special needs children ranging in ages from 5 to 21 years old.

I currently teach in the Merck Intensive Treatment classroom.  This is part of a non-profit organization that works in collaboration with my school. The Merck Program offers treatment services to children with Autism and Developmental Disabilities. My colleagues truly go above and beyond the call of duty to ensure the children reach their fullest potential. We search for resources to provide the students with opportunities that they may not be able to experience due to lack of financial means such as community outings and field trips, therapeutic and sensory materials that are appropriate for age and development, and rewards for appropriate behavior. We also provide opportunity for the children to contribute to the community while making it a valuable learning experience. For example, the staff and students organize a bake sale each year to raise money for autism research.”

Aside from all of this, Abby is also a Special Olympics volunteer and a high school and middle school coach for soccer and basketball.  Among all her volunteer activities, she also helps organize a prom each year and family fun day for special needs kids.

Abby is truly making a difference and huge impact on the lives of others. Thank you Abby for taking the time out to help Team Martina make the world a little brighter and for helping kids!

Sheila Jones with Abby (center) and Tracy Weaver

Learn more about Team Martina by going to TeamMartina.com

Team Martina special deliveries, the song lives on!

Gifts donated from all over the U.S.                                  

By Sheila Jones

Next week Martina McBride fan and Team Martina volunteer Leigh-Ann will be putting together Easter baskets for delivery to cancer patients and hospice patients in Florida. She and her husband Jim, touched by the song “I’m Gonna Love You Through It”, have been hard at work over the last couple of months collecting donations of items from around the country and purchasing goodies for kids of all ages at All Children’s Hospital in St Petersburg, FL. 

Leigh-Ann will be personally visiting hospital patients and delivering the Easter baskets of gifts this month. She will also be delivering baskets to adult patients at an additional hospital in Florida.  Leigh-Ann coordinated the donations for the baskets from several businesses in the St Petersburg area and from friends and family in several other states who shipped boxes of supplies to Florida in support of this project.

This is not the first time Leigh-Ann and Jim have coordinated a volunteer project of this magnitude to help cancer patients. This past Christmas they also treated hospital patients in Missouri to Christmas stockings filled with love and support to those battling cancer. They also participated in Sound Check For A Cure and helped Team Martina deliver hats to chemo patients at Vanderbilt Ingram Cancer Center in Nashville.

These special projects, designed to help cancer patients, were started by Tennessee cancer survivor Taira Baughman.

Thank you Leigh-Ann and Jim for your hard work and special efforts and for spreading love and joy when people need it most!

If you’d like to help with a donation for the baskets, let us know!

Visit TeamMartina.com

Dreams that you dare to dream really do come true

              By Sheila Jones

I was interviewed recently for a magazine article about Team Martina. Answering the reporter’s questions and seeing her reaction, I realized how incredible all this sounds to the rest of the world, but has become common place to us.

Our team of music loving volunteers is less than 2 years old. In that time our grass roots efforts have raised right at $100,000 for cancer causes. Leading up to this I had been a part of several cancer fundraising teams but never in my wildest dreams did I imagine becoming a part of something so extraordinary.

The reporter asked me if we had plans to continue and expand what we have started. Boy, do we! Last year I started looking for a cancer fighting organization for Team Martina to partner with. I talked to several non-profits but I didn’t find a great fit until I found the T.J. Martell Foundation. They are uniquely situated within the music industry and they’ve raised over $250 million for leukemia, cancer, and aids already. I’d say that made them incredible mentors for our work in fighting cancer!

I am regularly contacted now by individuals and groups that want to join and work with us and radio, magazines, and media that want to share our story. Team Martina certainly keeps me busy every day.

And, amazingly, another dream has come true… to create our very own fundraising event that many fans and country music artists can participate in. This year we partnered with our namesake, Martina McBride, to host our very first “Sound Check For A Cure”. This event raised $42,000 and we named a cancer research grant in honor of Martina that will be awarded to Vanderbilt University doctors.

Even better… Sound Check For A Cure will grow and continue around the country!! Another dream realized!

And speaking of Martina, we had the chance to sit down recently to talk about the future. It was wonderful, and certainly not surprising, to find out that she shares a lot of the same vision I have for these exciting efforts. She is incredible, creative, and inspiring to work with and I can’t wait to see what we do together next! “Really great people make you feel that you, too, can become great.”
What an amazing feeling to partner with a great lady and entertainer like her!

So many dreams have already been realized via Team Martina and we’re just getting started! I envision a day soon when Team Martina is the platform for a lot of good happening in the world for many different causes.

All this from a group of friends spread out all over the country united by a song and it’s singer… 100 people who have come together to show they care and who aren’t afraid to make dreams happen.

“If you want your dreams to come true, don’t sleep” - Yiddish proverb

I tell people I’m too stupid to know what’s impossible. I have ridiculously large dreams, and half the time they come true. - Debi Thomas

Martinis & Team Martina...YUM! & Shopping!

I hope to be in Nashville on Thursday for a pink martini with my Team Martina peeps at Elaine Turner Designs in The Mall at Greenhills!

We are honored that Elaine Turner Designs is donating 20% of sales this week to the Martina McBride Breast Cancer Grant through the T.J. Martell Foundation.
If you are not able to come have a pink drink with us at the in-store event this Thursday night you can still participate online in the benefit sale! 

Simply go to http://www.elaineturner.com and enter
in the promo code TeamMartina when you make a purchase. You can make a purchase anytime this week online or in person using this code and they will donate
20% to our cancer fighting effort.

Attached is an invite for the “Martinis & Team Martina” in-store event this Thursday, March 7, in Nashville with all the details on the sale/party. It’s going to be
a lot of fun from 6-8 PM

And check out what we’re giving away worn by Martina McBride!! Beautiful!!! Come by before 8 PM to register to win this blouse worn by Martina on the CMT Giants special!

Need, greed, and the catch 22 of giving back

I was catching up on some social good/charity news recently and came across a disappointing story from 2011. Apparently a little boy with leukemia was a big fan of the TV show “Barefoot Contessa” and his “Make A Wish” was to meet the star of the show, Ina Garten. The star was contacted twice and twice the request was turned down because of her busy schedule.

I read that, for a year, the little boy refused to accept a 2nd choice wish insisting that he only wanted to meet Ina Garten. The media had a field day with it and it was a lot of bad PR for Ina Garten. Eventually she agreed to meet the boy but his parents then refused her offer. They took their son to swim with dolphins instead… after a year.

Wow… FAIL! On so many levels.

I only know what I have read in the news about this but I am sure there is more than one side to the story.

As someone one who has been working with cancer patients and on many charitable endeavors over the course of several years (some involving celebrities) this story disturbs me because this 6 year old with leukemia, a very life threatening disease, waited a year of his precious life to meet a celebrity chef when no one knew how much time he had left on earth. And he could have easily enjoyed a 2nd choice wish? Did his family go along with this? A 6 year old is too young to make every decision for himself.

Here is what might be happening…more and more with celebrities and other public figures “we” decide their priorities and values and then condemn them for not living up to our expectations. How fair is that? I don’t know if the celebrity chef is in the right or wrong in this instance, but who am I to question any celebrity that turns me down for a personal request?

Can you imagine the number of personal requests that a celebrity gets each week? And usually those requests that are granted generate more requests. We have to remember that celebrities are people too.. with jobs, businesses, and personal lives to run just like us.

Our cancer fundraising team receives many requests each year from people that need help. I am often unable to fulfill requests to provide financial help to individuals. When we put together a benefit concert for one cancer family last year, it generated many more requests behind it from other families who heard about it. We are volunteers and I pay for many things out of my own pocket so I can certainly understand the pressure that can be put on someone when they become a landing point for many who say they are in need.

I have even received an unfriendly message or two criticizing my willingness or ability to provide help to someone who believed we could provide their family with a fundraiser. It can become overwhelming and most people are really only able to see things from their viewpoint.

I looked up the charity work that Ina Garten does… she has chosen environmental causes and other various projects to devote her work too. Should we automatically expect her to grant a “Make A Wish” also?

I have volunteered alongside many parents with children who have cancer and are seriously ill. Can you imagine a worse nightmare in life than to think that you might lose your child to cancer? Can you imagine how that would change your focus and perspective on life?

While it would be nice for my child to receive a “Make A Wish” experience, I don’t think we could let that one event become so important to us that it might overshadow the child’s remaining days while they fight cancer.

As a matter of fact, my friend Amy chose a very different path for her family when their 7 year old son Auston was diagnosed with cancer. Amy decided that she would do everything she could to raise money for childhood cancer research.

When she could have been in a position to ask for things, she instead chose to give back. Raising money and doing volunteer projects became therapy for Amy and Auston while they sat through long hours in the hospital.

Amy developed a huge network online, sold t-shirts, held events and raised over $11,000 for childhood cancer in Auston’s first year as a cancer patient. She even shaved her head just like Auston lost his hair.

Amy set an incredible example for her family and all of us and helped change the viewpoint and course of many other lives through her son’s cancer journey. Yes, Amy and Auston did eventually go to Disney World on a wish trip, but I can tell you that a much more incredible thing has come out of his cancer… how his mother handled his cancer has molded Auston into an incredible young man now… who will continue to have compassion and give back through out his entire life.

He will soon be 10 and is in remission from leukemia.

Team Martina is made up of country music fans giving back and making a difference in the world.

On success & significance

A quick blog tonight on a thoughtful topic I just read about at
http://www.foundthemarbles.com/2011/10/defining-success/

The question was are you successful or significant?

The work I am doing right now appears to be the most impactful work I have ever done in numbers of people it has helped or touched. It also appears to be the most successful if you gauge the new projects and partnerships being formed around it.

The irony is I am not making a penny.

I left my job job to devote time to fostering and building this idea to become as big as it can… an idea that seemed to provide such potential value to the world it would be a tragedy for it not to be allowed to grow.

So if you look at the money I have I don’t look that successful but it seems I may be blessed with potentially some of the most important work that has ever come into my life.

So… Are you successful or significant or both? And how do you define it?

Team Martina is the genesis of an idea for music fans and music artists to join together to make a hands on difference in the world. It’s the power of music to help and heal.
It’s the power of the crowd… Like minded people coming together to help those in need and be good to the world.

You can change the world

Here is a message from author Chris Fenwick. I haven’t yet read her book, but I liked what she said in this blog. I think it really speaks to a big part of Team Martina… the freedom and joy that helping others brings in life. I quit my paying job a year ago to do full time volunteer projects to help others in Team Martina and other groups. It’s often full time work.. I just don’t get a paycheck. It has not been easy financially for me and my husband but I think it’s the happiest we have ever been. It has been richly rewarding in so many ways. I am so amazed at how many team members send me messages telling me how happy this group makes them and how they continue to serve others on their own.

Here is what Chris says…

“You can change the world. A few of you believe me. A few more want to believe me, but really don’t. Many don’t really believe it at all and most think it’s just plain craziness. Someone asked me recently if I would change the name of my book, “the 100th human.” The answer was and still is, absolutely not. That name represents my unfaltering belief that you and I can change the world.

People have always needed reminding of how much influence they really have. “No man is an island, entire of itself…any man’s death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind; and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.” is from Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions, Meditation XVII. written by John Donne in 1624, nearly 400 years ago. Martin Luther King said in 1963, “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.” Whether it be justice or life and death, we are all interwoven in an elaborate quilt of life. Naturalist John Muir said, “When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the Universe.” I find it ironic how often we feel so alone in light of this truth. But it is the truth, you can and do change the world - whether it be for good or not is up to you.

Today, the internet has leveled the playing field and made the global canvas accessible by which you can make your mark, whether a broad stroke or a tiny indent, the effect is still evident. Should you choose to really lead, to really step out and step up, your voice can be heard by millions; Youtube and email and Myspace have seen to that. What will you say? How will you affect the rest of the world?

I will tell you a secret: If you do not learn the power of service, you will live in fear. For it is in service to others that we find faith. And faith is required to really change the world for good. As Seth Godin explains, “The only thing that is holding you back is your lack of faith. Faith that you can do it. Faith that it is worth doing. Faith that failure won’t destroy you.” But the next part of that, the real way in which faith empowers you, is in your knowing that you are serving another. Because when you see how your actions directly help, serve and encourage another human being who is in desperate need of your help, service and encouragement; then the focus is not on you any longer. Your fears thrive when you are focused on yourself. How do I look? What are they thinking of me? How will they interpret my actions? What will history write about me? Will I be laughed at? Am I smart enough? Am I good enough? All of these thoughts create fear and eventually stagnation. But when you are actively involved in serving another, fear falls away and faith takes hold like a bolt of electricity, empowering you to do amazing things. All of a sudden, you won’t care what “they” think. You will know that what you are doing is so very needed. You can see the effect in the eyes of the people for whom you serve. I believe that Barack Obama cares not what the nay-sayers are dribbling onto pages regarding him. He is far too focused on helping and serving in the most effective way he can. He is far too focused on the people loosing their homes, and jobs and families. He has chosen to serve at one of the very highest levels of commitment. You will only see him falter, if he takes his eyes off of those he has chosen to serve and begins to focus on himself. I pray that day never comes.

But what about you? Who do you serve? What do you trade your life for? What do you spend the hours doing? If you are not doing something that you can get passionate about and know how it improves the life of another, than you are not doing the right thing. And fear has a permanent home in your heart and mind.

As for me, my way to serve is to teach about the 8 Keys. I know that when we remember them, apply them and live by them, we are happier, more fulfilled, more at peace, and closer to the potential of who we all can be. I have seen and felt the effect of these keys on myself, my family, my friends and my readers. I have seen lives change for the better. When my focus shifts from me, to teaching others these truths, to people who I know want and need them; fear is immediately replaced by faith. And I know again what I must do. I must stand out and stand up and write and speak. And I will remind myself each time I feel fear, that my focus needs to shift to those who need the 8 Keys to transformation. This is my service to the rest of the world.

Join me in learning, living and sharing the 8 Keys. If you have read “the 100th human,” and it changed your life, made you think, reminded you of what you can do and be, then share it with another. Because together we - you and I can change the world.”

About the Author

Chris Fenwick is a consummate optimist, who is always challenging herself to understand and anticipate the direction of human development. Beginning with a childhood emersion in religious teachings, Chris learned early the importance of questioning why.

Professionally, Chris has 20 years of technology management experience and as an entrepreneur has helped launch 10 businesses - guiding research and development, as well as marketing and communications. As a leader, she has successfully created positive and creative environments, intentionally fostering interpersonal and internal growth within each organization. As a result, she is presently a valued partner in two companies.

Chris has traveled extensively throughout the world, learning from different cultures. She is always working to understand the nuances of our differences as well as our similarities.

Following the birth of her third child, she was completely captured by the writing of the story of “the 100th human,” and works tirelessly to spread the word about the 8 Keys in the book and the potential of every human being to make a positive difference.

Chris is presently writing “the 100th human” book series - 7 new books that expand the story and teachings of her first novel. She lives in Pennsylvania with her family.

Charging ahead like Secretariat... our story of hope

I have always loved the story of the race horse Secretariat. Despite her lack of horse-racing knowledge and against all odds, house wife Penny Chenery guides her long-shot but precocious horse to win the Triple Crown in 1973 and set a record that, to this day, still has not been broken.

I loved how Diane Lane depicted Penny in the movie… brave, bold, tenacious, yet full of intelligence, class and beauty… and with a vulnerability that just compels you to cheer for her. She really cared about what she was doing and she was fair and treated people right in a cut-throat male dominated sport. And she won… big time. She wasn’t afraid.

I love this true story.

I’ve never spent much time in my life sitting around waiting for ships to come in… I’ve always been out looking for Secretariats - the beautiful underdogs charging ahead in the world against the odds. And Team Martina is one of my Secretariats. It started as a wonderful cancer fundraising idea, then blossomed into a mission to personally reach people suffering with cancer, and now the idea stands poised to grow into a platform for incredible good in the world.

It’s taken on a life of it’s own now. More have joined in and it’s out of the gate and galloping down the track.

The basic idea behind it is that music heals and music changes things. It really does. I was so touched by a song that I wanted to do something that would help deliver that healing to people and make it personal and real. Something they could touch and hold on to when the music stopped.

So we’ve created new cancer research grants and new friendships and we’ve fed people both literally and figuratively. And hopefully we’ve filled souls and minds with good food. All from a song.

The idea of fundraising work and fan volunteerism is something that came into my mind years ago. I was at a sound check before a concert with Martina McBride and Little Big Town in my town. As I sat there in the dark and watched, I started to think about how special this experience was. I had already started working with cancer patients back then and I thought about how exciting and therapeutic this experience could be for them.

And the wheels started to turn.

How could I join the music and the people in a way that they could engage to help the world? Benefit concerts are wonderful but is there a way to keep that love and energy going so that it becomes part of the fabric of everyday lives?

That’s what fan volunteerism is to me.

Thank you to Martina McBride for being the first to take us up on these ideas. She too is brave, bold, tenacious and full of intelligence, class and beauty and I am incredibly honored to work with her on this team.

Away we go charging ahead with no fear.

Secretariat movie http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UKmuvjL2cVw

8 dogs, 1 homeless child... and the crazy lady that took them all in

By Sheila Jones

I left home when I was still in high school. I literally packed a small bag one night and just left. Now I don’t usually advocate running away to any young person, but I was in a really bad situation. My father physically abused my mother for years and I was in a lot of danger. Leaving was the best decision I ever made. It probably saved my life.

But that’s not what this story is about. This is story is about Joyce. Everyone should have someone like her in their life.

Joyce was someone who vaguely knew my family and knew of my situation. She was someone I had met once or twice and spent maybe a couple of hours visiting with prior… she was an acquaintance. But Joyce came to my rescue over 20 years ago.

She was widowed at the young age of 40 when her husband suddenly died of a heart attack. She was widowed again years later when she lost her second husband. When I came to know her, all of her children were grown, she was retirement age and she had just lost her elderly Dad to cancer.

She was a little beat up by life… yes.

But she had 8, and sometimes 10 dogs, and she was very happy with her little “family”.

Joyce was a dog trainer and showed pure bred retrievers in dog shows around the country. Her house was literally a kennel. But she offered me a safe haven, a place to live and the chance to finish high school. And she did this for a kid she didn’t know very well. When someone asked her why she was doing such a thing, she quoted them this:

“A hundred years from now it will not matter what my bank account was, the sort of house I lived in, or the kind of car I drove…but the world may be different because I was important in the life of a child.”

And she admitted she was probably a little crazy.

Having already raised 3 teenagers to adulthood, there wasn’t much I could throw out that she hadn’t already seen. She taught me to drive a stick shift, helped me get a dress for my senior prom and came to my high school graduation. She was the only person there for me that day.

I won a college scholarship and she made sure I showed up on that campus with bells on the first day of school.

She wasn’t big on showing emotions but she believed in me. And we both cried the day I moved out of her house.. 3 years after I first arrived …I was finally ready to go out into the world.

How many people would do what she did?

I thank God for the Joyces of the world. Through my work with Team Martina… incredibly I have met more Joyces. God didn’t break the mold when he made her… he made more like her!

When we first started our sound check fundraiser last Fall to raise money for the Martina McBride breast cancer grant, Joyce had just had surgery and was in the hospital. She was expected to fully recover, but things didn’t go as planned. I spent 2 weeks sitting in her room with my laptop working on the fundraiser while she slept.

She just wouldn’t wake up and the doctors didn’t know why.

I left one afternoon to go pickup my child at school and that’s when she passed.

We had known each other for 25 years.

She was the one who started me doing volunteer work when I was a teenager. She said I owed it to her and the only way I could ever pay her back was to pay it forward to someone else in the world.

That’s what Team Martina has been for me… a way to pay it forward to the world.

And that’s the story of the 8 dogs, 1 homeless child, and the crazy lady who took them all in.

As the song says… “Loves the only house big enough for all the pain in the world”.

Guatemala

Since Team Martina formed in 2011 we have mostly worked for cancer causes. I was chatting with some folks yesterday about other causes that are near to my heart.

In 2009 I took my first trip to Guatemala. I was a part of a group that went to do work for a week at an orphanage. When I was invited to go on the trip, I had never thought about volunteering in a developing country.

(Two of the children our group brought toys to in a Guatemalan orphanage)

It sounds cliche to say it changed my life… but it did.
I didn’t come back from the trip a different person, but someone different slowly blossomed in the weeks and months after.

Guatemala is a land of volcanoes over 2,000 miles from where I live and the country has over 400,000 orphans due to disease and violence.

Much like Team Martina, many of our team members convened from different parts of the U.S. and we raised money to go on the trip. We worked for a week there doing everything from cleaning and painting the orphanage to digging a well to throwing a party for the kids who live there.

They do not adopt children out from this orphanage… the idea is to raise the children in a loving environment and give them an education so that they may grow up to be productive citizens of their own country. They are their country’s future.

One of my personal contributions to our project was to bring enough balsa wood airplanes for each child in the orphanage… that was approx 600 airplanes. I had to fit them all in a standard size suitcase for the flight there. I will never forget the day we handed them out to the kids. It was even better than Christmas morning. To say they were crazy about the toys was an understatement. I had so many children grabbing for airplanes that I had to hand them off to one of the taller men in the group so I wouldn’t be pulled to the ground.

These children have nothing. Many were abandoned in back allies or their parents were killed in drug wars. While we were there, the authorities brought in a week old baby that was abandoned. 

That child is now 4 years old and is doing well in kindergarten. 

(a baby that we cared for in the nursery at the orphanage)

“I brought children into this dark world because it needed the light that only a child can bring.” ~Liz Armbruster

The Isaacs & Team Martina... a very special connection

                                                     By Sheila Jones

This weekend my family and I attended a fabulous concert by The Isaacs. They are a legendary gospel music family and have also written and produced several country music projects. They have worked with almost everyone from Dolly Parton to Vince Gill and they’ve written hit songs for Rascal Flatts, Martina McBride, and more.

They are perhaps one of the best kept secrets in music of any genre. And Team Martina is forever connected to them by a very special story decades in the making.

The Dove award winning Isaacs family is made up of mom Lily, sisters Becky and Sonya, brother Ben and Sonya’s husband Jimmy. Many years ago, The Isaacs, of Tennessee, played at a church in Michigan. I believe the story goes that they played there each summer. It was at this church where Taira Baughman spent her youth. Taira and Sonya, the Isaacs middle daughter, became friends as youngsters. Sonya’s mother, Lily, had survived breast cancer years before.

Sonya grew up and became a very successful vocalist and song writer and Taira grew up, moved to Tennessee from Michigan, and became a successful photographer and videographer.

And fate brought them together again in Tennessee. Taira was the videographer at Sonya’s wedding while guest Vince Gill sang “The Rock Of Your Love”.

Then enter cancer… a short time later Taira was diagnosed with aggressive triple negative breast cancer at the age of 38. Sonya and her husband Jimmy wrote a song about that same time about mother Lily’s experience with breast cancer years before. The song was called “I’m Gonna Love You Through It”. Martina McBride recorded the song and Taira was chosen to be in the video and it was a huge hit.

And the rest is history… but it’s not. This incredible story continued to unfold.

Enter Team Martina…

When our cancer fundraising team of Martina McBride fans formed, I thought it would be a great idea to find some of the cancer survivors from that video.  I easily found Taira.. it was almost as if a trail had been left from me to her. It was fate again. Little did we know that Taira’s cancer would come back so soon and we would all be called to make a huge difference in one cancer patient’s life.

Enter “The Isaacs”…

Our team and The Isaacs went to work together to raise money for Taira to save her family from losing their home because of the financial strain they were under due to cancer treatments. It was something we never thought we’d be able to do… but with God’s blessing we won that first battle against cancer last year and the Baughmans got to stay in their home. The Isaacs believed in us and believed that we could make a difference together.

And it set off an incredible chain of events that has helped our team raise almost $100,000 to fight cancer and help many chemo patients since 2011.

We will be forever in debt to the wonderful Isaacs family for the benefit concert they gave Taira. It made all the difference for her family. It was blessed.

And now the Team Martina idea may be evolving right before our very eyes into something even bigger than we ever dreamed with the music industry jumping on board to help defeat cancer.

So I attend The Isaacs concerts every chance I get. Our whole story started with them. They have an incredible family harmony that gives you chills. It doesn’t matter if you are a gospel fan or not… you should go to an Isaacs concert. You will be hooked. And you’ll be blessed.

And they are good people… the best.

Take a listen here to them singing “I’m Gonna Love You Through It” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vi9KI2eGtj8

One song and thousands of fans that sparked a movement

Music fans around the U.S., inspired by one song in 2011, decided to fight back against cancer and they started a worldwide movement. And that’s how Team Martina began…

I admit it… I’ve been a country music fan my whole life. I was a huge pop fan in 80’s, but I came back to country. And I’ve loved Martina McBride’s music for over 15 years.  My admiration of her music started like many of her fans - one of her songs seemed as if it was written about me. And it became an anthem. My mother was a victim of domestic violence for most of her 30 year marriage… and that’s how she tragically died in 1998. So, like in the song, she and I both got our “Independence Day” from a terrible situation, but I lost her.

Fast forward several years… I came to be an activist and fundraiser… but not for domestic violence – I was called to cancer causes. The first time I heard the Martina McBride song “I’m Gonna Love You Through It”, it hit me like a bolt out of the blue. Martina performed it live for her fan club party in Nashville, TN, in June 2011 and I was there. A song had not reached out and grabbed me in such a way since “Independence Day”. I knew that I had to take action.

Soon after, a friend and I started a cancer fundraising group called Team Martina.com inspired by the song. I had already had a lot of cancer fundraising experience and I thought it was a good idea. Members of Martina’s fan club joined our group. People came from all walks of life and from all over the country to meet us in Nashville. Some of us had known each other for years and some were meeting for the first time. And we all felt united around a song and compelled to help those suffering from cancer.

I had the idea to contact cancer survivors that appeared in the music video for the song. I started a desperate search to reach out to total strangers and try to convey what our team’s mission was and not have them think we were just crazy fans!  One survivor that answered my letter was Taira Baughman. She lived in Nashville and she was a young mother with 4 children. She was just like the woman in the song and had already survived a bout with stage 3 breast cancer at just 38 years of age.

Taira agreed to help me plan projects for our cancer fighting team and we set off to complete a 5 mile walk to benefit cancer research with the help of 40 other Martina McBride fans from 15 different states. They came by train, plane, and car – some crossed the country and traveled for hours to be with us. They trained for months and walked over 1000 cumulative miles while asking for donations. Martina heard about what we were doing and was so touched that she matched our efforts. Together we raised over $22,000 for cancer research.  It was an incredible experience filled with excitement and camaraderie.

Christmas soon rolled around and Taira and I knew that we wanted to do something to lift the spirits of cancer patients during the holidays. Team Martina went to work filling Christmas stockings. Fans from all over the nation joined in by purchasing small gifts for hospital patients. In all, 1200 chemotherapy patients received comforting gifts of books, music, lotions and hats from us. And Martina herself joined us in Nashville  at Christmas to sing carols to hospital patients and visit at their bedside. It was a magical holiday blessing that none of us will ever forget.

However, things for my friend Taira took a turn for the worse when she became ill and learned that her cancer had returned and spread. The doctors painted a grim picture… she had a rare type of cancer and they told her she might only live 1 to 2 years. Our team members were devastated. I had only known Taira for a few months and it seemed destined that we were meant to make a difference in the world together. How could this be happening? Now one of our own was battling cancer. What could we do?

Taira and her husband Rob have 4 children ranging in ages 4 to 18 and she is a talented wedding photographer owning her own business. She and Rob were still working to pay off the medical bills that insurance didn’t cover from her first battle with cancer when the second diagnosis came. Taira quickly became too ill to work and they feared their family would be financially devastated. They had already lost their home and were facing losing their business. And how would they be able to take care of their children?

Team Martina decided to come to the rescue of Taira by throwing a benefit concert in Nashville.  We contacted the gospel music group The Isaacs and asked them to perform and they agreed. The song “I’m Gonna Love You Through It” has a very special meaning for them as well because two of their members, Jimmy Yeary and Sonya Isaacs Yeary, wrote the song along with Ben Hayslip.  Incredibly, the song is a true story about Sonya’s mother being diagnosed with breast cancer at a young age and surviving it!  And, incredibly, Sonya and Taira had known each other for years prior to the song being written.

The concert was a beautiful success! Team Martina members once again united from around the U.S. to organize the event to raise thousands for Taira and her family. Grand Old Opry legend Connie Smith joined the show and it was a sell out. And much of the inspiration behind the concert was that Taira is such a courageous woman who always works to help and lift others up. Our team felt inspired to return the favor to her.

Team Martina has now raised over $55,000 for cancer causes and continues working to fight cancer in 2012 with more fundraisers and visits to patients around the country. People from around the world have volunteered to join us. We continue to encourage people with cancer and we strive to lift them up. And Taira is still fighting and still winning her battle with her team of country music fans at her side.

One song that sparked a movement that touched thousands of people around the world.

Like us and join us at http://www.facebook.com/teammartina

Twitter @TeamMartina2011

http://www.teammartina.com

Amazed and inspired every day...

When you wake up, are you amazed and inspired every day?  I am.

I used to take so much for granted. I was generally pretty happy, but it was like I was living with blinders over my eyes. I was happy with the work I was doing, but not set on fire by it.

That is… I wasn’t set on fire by work… until I started volunteering and working with cancer patients and causes a few years ago. It was something that I felt God calling me to do and I stepped out in faith.

Then we started Team Martina last year and, along with cancer survivors from Martina’s video for “I’m Gonna Love You Through It”, we helped spark a movement around the country.

A movement of people, that don’t even know each other, uniting to take the hands of those struggling with cancer and to help raise money for cancer research and make the fight even stronger.

Today I learned of a lady that ran a 5K race in El Paso, Texas, in honor of our teammate Taira’s battle against cancer.

A group of people in Minnesota came together to walk against breast cancer.

A volunteer from California planned her vacation to another state around a cancer charity walk.

Another non profit organization in Nashville contacted me to ask how they can help me with one of our projects.

There are so many more like this… more stories and examples than I can name right now. It’s starting to happen now… almost everyday. Something happens almost every day that makes me say “WOW, I can’t believe this”.

Amazed and inspired every day. I wish this for you too.

In church this morning our pastor told us that God wants us to move from crisis faith, to confident faith, to contagious faith.

I think we see contagious faith. I see a contagious movement taking place all around me now. I see a fire set under other people that feel called to the same things I feel called to and they are stepping out in faith to make a difference… sometimes with people they don’t know over great distances… to reach out to other people and help them to fight cancer.

Amazed and inspired… every day

We're hosting The Isaacs!

TAIRA BAUGHMAN BENEFIT

An intimate concert with the Dove Award winners The Isaacs

And special guest Opry Legend Connie Smith

Just as music soothes the soul, compassion soothes the heart. During life’s most difficult journeys, compassion can be as instrumental as music. It’s a song that resonates in the heart—it’s the music of hope.

On March 29^th, 2012, Madison Heights Baptist Church in Madison, Tennessee will feature the music of hope with The Isaacs and Connie Smith, together in a benefit concert for Taira Baughman and her family. Taira battled triple negative breast cancer, and is now fighting stage 4 metastasized breast cancer to the lungs. She’s been married for 19 years to Rob Baughman; they have four children, ages 4 – 18.

The Thursday evening concert will feature Dove award winners “The Isaacs” and Grand Ole Opry legend Connie Smith. Connie Smith has performed with award winning artists, including Martina McBride. Two members of The Isaacs family, Sonya Isaacs Yeary and husband Jimmy Yeary, along with Ben Hayslip, co-wrote “I’m Gonna Love You Through It,” a song made famous this year by Martina McBride.

Soon after being featured as one of the survivors in Martina McBride’s new music video of “I’m Gonna Love You Through It,” Taira Baughman began looking for a way to be instrumental in cancer patients lives. In just three weeks, she created the “Operation—We’re Gonna Love Them Through It,” project and orchestrated teams of angels around the nation. The project’s angels delivered over 1,000 stockings in ­thirteen states. Each stocking was filled with eleven hopeful items for cancer patients going through chemotherapy during the week of Christmas. Martina McBride joined Taira Baughman and her team for the delivery in Nashville.

Taira’s compassion for others is exemplary. Her remarkable faith is evident to everyone who knows her. To blog readers, her unfolding story is one of determination—one courageous step at a time. The Baughman family has experienced the full wrath of cancer, from physical to emotional to spiritual to financial. Yet, they are determined to beat cancer head on.

That is what inspired four organizations to come together to spearhead the benefit concert. Madison Heights Baptist Church, Team Martina, BecauseHopeMatters.com, and Middle Tennessee YMCA of Rutherford County—After Breast Cancer Program orchestrated all arrangements for the concert. The cost of cancer is high. But the potential of hope is much higher. It’s not walking in someone’s shoes that matters most, it’s your willingness to walk beside them that matters more.

Details and advanced tickets available at Madison Heights Baptist Church or online at www.TeamMartina.com.

Authored by: www.BecauseHopeMatters.com and www.TeamMartina.com

An Army Of Pink Marching Your Way

For the last few weeks Team Martina has been on red alert emergency response mode. Our teammate Taira has been severely ill. As you recall, Taira is one of the survivors from Martina McBride’s video for “I’m Gonna Love You Through It” and she joined our team of cancer fighters last Fall.

Unfortunately Taira’s cancer has returned and she has been diagnosed as stage 4. She is a young wife and mother of four kids ages 4 to 18… and she is an incredible lady who has already survived one bout with cancer. She is so selfless and does so much for others.

It is our turn now to come to her rescue.

One round of cancer would be all that most any family could handle and Taira and her family made it through the first time but it drained their finances. Now that they are facing another cancer crisis, they are in desperate need of help to pay bills and take care of their children.

Our team is like family and we have gone into high gear to help Taira… and we’ve picked up some new friends and team members along the way.

We started out not knowing exactly what we could do…

The last few weeks have brought us special opportunities to work with Taira’s church family at Madison Heights Baptist Church in Madison, TN, the YMCA After Breast Cancer programs in Middle TN, the Tennessee Breast Cancer Coalition and BecauseHopeMatters.com to name a few.

We have also been honored to collaborate with the co-writer of “I’m Gonna Love You Through It”, Sonya Isaacs, and wonderful folks at Big Machine Records and Martina McBride.

What is emerging right before our eyes is an incredibly special and inspirational story of a large group of volunteers coming together.

We are stepping out in faith and being brave and trying things we never thought possible before to help our friend.

Taira, there is an army of pink soldiers marching your way. A huge family of people that love you and your family and we are coming to help. Yes, there are super heroes in the world who wear pink capes.

Everyone cares so much about you and we are working hard to return the goodness you have shown to so many. We have some projects in the works to help love you and your family through this.

Stay tune for more info to come very soon.

At this time donations can be made to Taira at:

Suntrust Bank Taira Baughman Benefit Fund 15375 Lebanon Rd Old Hickory, TN 37138

Team Martina will also be participating in the 2012 Nashville Relay For Life this year on May 4 in Taira’s honor.

Thank you everyone for supporting our team and helping us help those who are fighting cancer.

Angel in PA

One of our Team Martina angels brought home so much inspiration from Nashville that she delivered Christmas stockings to almost 200 cancer patients in western PA! Around the U.S. over 1200 chemo patients received gifts from Team Martina and Operation Love!

Hanging out with Martina McBride and doing good in the world

So a lot of people have asked us what it’s like to hang out with Martina McBride? Honestly… it’s pretty darn cool! We started Team Martina in 2011 to fight cancer and Martina has been behind us all the way.

She came with us a few days ago to deliver Christmas stockings to cancer patients at St Thomas Hospital in Nashville. This was a fun and amazing opportunity for team members to spread joy to chemo patients during the holidays AND we got to hang out with Martina and chat and … compare footwear! Fun!!!

Martina is an amazing lady… simply put. She really cares and it shines through. The whole project started coming together in November when one of our team members, Taira Baughman (a cancer survivor herself), came up with the idea for Operation We’re Gonna Love ‘Em Through It http://www.operationlove.net

While Taira worked on organizing the Christmas stocking drive with our team, Sheila Jones worked with Martina’s crew to pave the way for her visit to cancer patients in the hospital.

It’s not always easy for one of the most famous music artists in the world to drop everything and show up any old place she wants to - there are teleconferences, trains, planes, meetings, tweets, media, schedules, plates spinning, GPS’s recalibrating… YIKES!

But Martina and team worked hard on it and it was an AMAZING day. Martina is as gentle and kind as she is beautiful.

She gave us big, heartfelt hugs… there was a lot of hugging and high 5’ing going on in this group, we’re here to tell you! It was like the best family reunion ever. We got to have a little time as friends and then we surprised the patients in the hospital with one of the most famous entertainers in the world for Christmas!

Tour manager extraordinaire Mark Hively and world’s best drummer Greg Herrington were there along with the terrific Tracy Weaver. Mark showed up extra early to help Sheila with last minute details. Greg brought his beautiful kids to help us stuff the stockings. Tracy was a blast as always providing comedic relief to the patients.

And we welcomed special guest Jimmy Harnen and his son Luke as our honorary team members… Jimmy is a rock star, artist, and music row genius himself! And just so happens to be president of Republic Records Nashville.

We sang Christmas carols to all the patients and staff in the chemo therapy rooms… yes accompanied by one of the top female vocalist the world has ever known!! Incredible!

And we met with some of the best cancer doctors in the world with some of the hardest jobs in the world.

Definitely a day none of us will ever forget!

So, would you like to join Team Martina on a project to fight cancer in 2012??  Yeah, we thought so! Check us out and drop us a line  http://www.teammartina.com