A Great Day!

Today we were invited to the Hanesbrands headquarters in Winston-Salem for lunch. Hanesbrands is the company who is sponsoring Parker's wish trip through the Make-A-Wish Foundation. They wanted to spend some time with us before we headed off on our trip next week. Hanesbrands has a whole department dedicated to corporate social responsibility. For more information on the work they are doing to contribute to the communities in which they work, visit their website.

We picked up Kelsey and Connor early from school and drove to the north end of town to a huge set of buildings that houses the Hanesbrands headquarters. We met the representatives from the local Make-A-Wish chapter at the entrance to the building and then were escorted to the top floor where we were met by Chris Fox (VP of Corporate Social Responsibility) and other people from Hanesbrands. They had the whole room decorated with Disney balloons, a toy train that drove on tracks around the table and lots of presents. They also introduced us to Sayde, a therapy dog, and her trainer who they invited to the lunch. Sayde is still in training to work as a therapy dog at the children's hospital and since they knew Parker liked dogs so much this was a great opportunity for Sayde to practice her skills. She did some great tricks for us and the kids all enjoyed petting her, shaking her hand and taking pictures with her.

Then we were invited over to start eating. The chefs at Hanesbrands had prepared a special lunch for us of macaroni and cheese, chicken nuggets, brownies, and cookies (all of Parker's favorites). There was also a salad and some roasted potates for the grown-ups. It was yummy and they sent us home with the leftovers to have for dinner! While we were eating Rich Noll, Chairman and CEO of Hanebrands, stopped by to meet everyone and wish us well on our trip.

Once everyone had their fill, the kids were showered with gifts. They each received a bag full of toys and candy. They also each received a new backpack with snacks for the train ride in the small pocket. The large pocket was full of Disney World clothes. T-Shirts, sweat shirts, hoodies, socks, etc. Hanesbrands does all the souvenir clothing for the Disney theme parks. Chris said they got a good deal ;) There was even a bag for Mom and Dad with some Disney World hoodies and a jacket. Each of the kids also received a $25 American Express gift card for them to spend on souvenirs.

Don Timmons from Make-A-Wish also presented Parker with some beautiful hand-carved wooden model trains. One was a row of train cars carved with all the letters of his name and another was a large steam engine. These were done by someone in the community who heard about Parker's wish and made these toys special for him. When we were all done, they loaded us up with all the gifts, leftovers and decorations from the party. Our van was so stuffed with Disney balloons I couldn't even see through the rearview window!

We were overwhelmed by their generosity. It was a great kick-off for what promises to be an amazing experience in Orlando next week. Parker's illness has had a major impact on our family, both good and bad, but I fear that our children only see the bad. We've said from the beginning that we wanted to deal with this trial the best we could and we never wanted our children to feel like they missed out on a positive childhood experience because Parker was sick. So it was wonderful to see Parker so happy and excited about something. He's already been through more than any child should have to go through and this will lift his spirits so much. It was also great for Kelsey and Connor to see something positive come as a result of Parker's situation. We commented to them how lucky they were and Connor said, "Yeah, we're lucky because of Parker." I couldn't agree more.