Check out their website: http://www.healthpromotionsnow.com/promosforacause/

Along with the teens, we also had so much fun with the little ones. Kids Korner (age-appropriate activities for retreat participants 1st grade and under) can basically be filmed as a segment for the old TV show Kids Say the Darndest Things. Every time I enter the room for Kids Korner I can guarantee that I will be laughing at something within 5 minutes. DTD kids are just too cute!

Let me not forget the parents either! You could just tell that the parents on this retreat truly appreciated our program. By the end of the three days, all the parents had already become very close and even made promises to meet up with each other in the coming weeks and months after the retreat!

Here are some testimonies from the families from this retreat:

I was really impressed with how engaging and fun a lot of the activities were. Artworld and Challenge Quest were great along with the discussion groups. The staff was talented, energetic, and caring which was great.

This was even better than I expected. The staff was GREAT and the activities got everyone involved- even my husband!

Very wonderful experience. I liked the family togetherness which invcluded my family as well as the other families. Staying together during activities was nice.

Here is a family testimony from our February 2013 craniofacial condition retreat that I found to be particularly touching:

There are not enough kind words to explain how wonderful this retreat has been, or how kind and caring everyone has been. Such an overwhelming feeling knowing that everyone (volunteers, staff, etc.) care enough to give their time, energy, and hearts to all of our families and more families who really need and deserve such a great time. Thank you all so very much.

"This has been a blessing for our family. We were able to get away, relax as a family, and spend time with people that understand us and our son. For once,, I felt like we were among our own kind of people  and it made us feel great (not needing to explain our son’s medical conditions). We’ve met a lot of wonderful families, volunteers and staff. We will NEVER forget you! Thank you SO much!"

"This event was a dream come true that came at the right moment in our lives. With our everyday struggles, it was great to feel as if our life was “normal” and being around others facing the same struggles helped create that feeling. I hate leaving and realizing we will face the same frustrations when we get home. But we will face them with a new family, new coping skills, and a restful spirit. We will always be thankful."

"I have never been able to leave my three kids (under three) for more than 30 minutes. Our helper volunteers were so wonderful. It was great to know we are not alone and talk in a warm, loving and non-threatening environment. It taught us to laugh, be silly and yes… grieve the small things we have lost in a healthy way. We have made lasting friendships and memories for a lifetime. We were concerned that our kids would be too young to get anything from this. But, we often focus always on the child with special needs and not the rest of the family. Thank you all for taking the time out of your busy lives to help us in our time of need. We are forever thankful!"

"This weekend was incredible. Words truly cannot express the gratitude we feel for everything this weekend had to offer. The staff, volunteers, and families made us feel right at home. This weekend has been the most fun we have had since our son has been born! Thank you for the amazing things you have done for our family!"

http://devosstudents.blogspot.com/2012/08/devos-students-deliver-dream.html 

Generation Dream, a unique new young professionals group connecting for a cause, in partnership with The Village at Gulfstream Park is hosting Dare to Dream at The Village at Gulfstream Park on Thursday, July 26th. Like us on Facebook and Follow us on Twitter @SLFoodandWine

Love the South Florida food scene? Check out our newly published book (Globe Pequot Press, $14.95), Food Lovers’ Guide to Miami & Fort Lauderdale

For $20, participants can enjoy appetizers, cocktails, games and live entertainment at some of The Village’s top restaurants. Proceeds from Dare to Dream at the Village at The Village at Gulfstream Park will benefit Deliver the Dream – a not-for-profit retreat program that helps families who have a child or a parent living with illnesses such as cancer and autism. Full event schedule is below:

6PM: Start the night off at The Playwright Irish Pub with a free appetizer and drink. Happy hour specials run from 6PM – 8PM.
7PM: Let the games begin! Playwright will host a special version of the game show “Minute to Win It,” with prizes including gift cards to The Village at Gulfstream Park.
8PM: Head over to Blu Sushi for a free appetizer and cocktail. Blu Sushi will also be offering a dinner special and gift card raffles worth up to $250. Finish the night with a live acoustic band.

Event is open to the public
*Registration available in advance or at the door. To pre-register, please call: 954-564-3512

The Village at Gulfstream Park
501 S Federal Highway
Hallandale Beach, FL

www.thevillageatgulfstreampark.com 

Read the fu exallminer article here: http://www.examiner.com/article/deliver-the-dream-at-the-village-of-gulfstream-park?cid=rss 

Deliver the Dream is pleased to announce we’ve been named a finalist in Toyota’s 100 Cars for Good program, which is giving 100 vehicles to 100 nonprofits over the course of 100 days.  We are hoping to win a new car to help transport our volunteers and therapists to the retreats.

Please tell your friends and repost this message on Facebook.  And be sure to visit www.100carsforgood.com on THIS SUNDAY ONLY, JULY 15, to vote for us.  

Help us win a new car to make an even bigger difference! 

Thank you for your support.

- The Deliver the Dream Team 

"This weekend has provided our family a stress free, fun filled vacation full of laughter, heartfelt moments and some eye opening education.  We are always apprehensive about going anywhere as a family but this retreat has been a "Dream".  Our kids have had so much fun and don't want to leave and we have met wonderful families who are walking the same walk of life we are.  It has been so wonderful to learn we are not alone in this!  We can't thank you enough!

~ DTD Autism Retreat 109 

Welcome to Holland

 By Emily Pearl Kingsley

I am often asked to describe the experience of raising a child with a disability---to try to help people who have not shared that unique experience to understand it, to imagine how it would feel.  It’s like this….

When you’re going to have a baby, it’s like planning a fabulous vacation trip—to Italy.  You buy a bunch of guidebooks and make your wonderful plans, the Coliseum, the Michelangelo David, the gondolas in Venice. You may learn some handy phrases in Italian. It’s all very exciting. 

After months of eager anticipation, the day finally arrives.  You pack your bags and off you go. Several hours later, the plane lands.  The flight attendant comes and says, “Welcome to Holland!”

“Holland?!” you say.  “What do you mean, Holland?”  “I’ve signed up for Italy!  I’m supposed to be in Italy. All my life I’ve dreamed of going to Italy.”

But there’s been a change in the flight plan. They’ve landed in Holland and there you must stay.

The important thing is that they haven’t taken you to a horrible, disgusting, filthy place, full of pestilence, famine, and disease.  It’s just a different place.

So you must go out and buy new guidebooks.  And you must learn a whole new language.  And you will meet a whole new group of people you would have never met.

It’s just a different place. It’s slower paced than Italy, less flashy than Italy. But after you’ve been there for a while and you catch your breath, you look around, and you begin to notice that Holland has windmills, Holland has tulips, Holland even has Rembrandts.

But everyone you know is busy coming and going to Italy, and they’re all bragging about what a wonderful time they had there. And for the rest of you life, you will say, “Yes, that’s where I was supposed to go, that’s what I had planned.”

And the pain of that will never, ever, ever go away, because the loss of a dream is a very significant loss.

But if you spend your life mourning the fact that you didn’t get to Italy, you may never

be free to enjoy the very special, the very lovely things about Holland.  

Admission to Happy Hour is free for Emerge Broward Members, $10 for Generation Dream Members and $15 for all other attendees.  These two young professional groups have partnered together for a networking event that will benefit Deliver the Dream (DTD) kids with severe illnesses and Voices, assisting abandoned and neglected children of Broward County.

Registration includes one premium cocktail, appetizers, and a raffle ticket.  A private wine tasting, will be given away as a raffle prize.

Generation Dream aspires to fundraise $50,000 to sponsor a DTD retreat each year.  This year the young professionals group recently sponsored the May 18-20, 2012 retreat for children with down syndrome.  The young professionals not only raised funds for the retreat but volunteered as a team and assisted the kids all weekend long through different therapeutic activities.  The group continues to have networking events all year long in order to provide these retreats to families in need.

There are no words to properly describe the magic experienced this weekend at the Retreat.  There were so many hallmark moments that will be forever imprinted in my heart;  seeing Randee eat her meals in a timely fashion and with purpose, seeing her stand up from her wheelchair on day one to ‘shake her booty’ with the rest of us in the circle, seeing her ‘want’ to wake up early, seeing her at the dance party, seeing her being accepted by everybody there, seeing her laugh and smile all weekend long, seeing her cry when I said we were going home and so much more. 

And then of course there was Jack….oh my god…he shared his true feelings, he laughed, he bonded and he was….oh so very, very happy.

I owe these experiences to each one of YOU!  I was nervous about going to the Retreat for many reasons and just like that, with your encouraging words and beautiful smiles, I let go of my issues and opened my heart to receive.  I watched how each of you connected with the families.  I watched how each of you transitioned from project to project without a hitch. I watched how each of you always smiled and never judged.  For families experiencing challenges or disabilities, these attributes that you generously show, mean more than you could ever imagine.  It’s because of people like you, that make families like mine, feel so welcomed and so very grateful.

Without a doubt – Christie Galeano, Rebecca Hahessy, Brittany Camper, my friend Paul Withrow and Deliver the Dream, will forever be in my heart and soul. 

From our hearts to yours….

Linda, Randee & Jack

I am very thankful for the Deliver the Dream organization and all of the people that partner to make this DREAM come true!!!!

J 

Be blessed~
With love~
Jeanine 

First of all, can you feel my excitement?  I have only opened the excel attachment and already, you guys have wowed me again and I haven’t even made it there yet!!!

As a volunteer for DTD, I personally want to say I am glad to be a part of DTD.  Even before meeting my family, I am ecstatic about it.  I see from the famiy makeup that this family is right on, just for me.  As a single mother, who is also 33 yrs old raising twins, I know this is God ordained.  I hope they WOW me like I expect to BLESS them!

You guys really are amazing. 

Kia.