Samantha Falbo: Working Hard to Walk Again!

An update from Samantha's sister, Tina:

She is in therapy 3 days a week still. She can walk with minimal assistance, although still in a wheelchair primarily because she can only walk short distances at a time with a cane and somebody by her side. She's still very wobbly. She did walk 240 feet in therapy last week which is huge. Her left arm is still paralyzed but at a recent doctor appointment, her neuro surgeon advised us he is confidant the use of her arm will come back but it will take a while. The muscle in her face came back after her Oct. 31st skull replacement surgery and her smile is now not crooked. She does have a small scar on her face, but she said she will not have plastic surgery for it. She can eat solid foods now and her speech and her cognitive ability is real good. She forgets some words and their pronounciations, but all in all, she has amazed her physicians. They are making a tape of her progress for other patients as inspiration. It could be another 6 months to 18 months recovery but she continues to make progress every week. I applied for a grant through the hospital and received funds for Samantha to continue her therapy because her insurance benefits for therapy ran out.

Bella Pollard: Cancer Free!!!

A message from Bella Pollard's blog:


The LORD has heard our prayers and answered them with a YES!  We are blown away by the way God has been so faithful to Isabella and our family.  Today we got the results of Bella's MRI and MIBG scans and they both showed that there was no more evidence of cancer!!!!!!!!!!!

It's hard to put into words the thankfulness, joy and relief we feel right now! Thank you for praying for Isabella's recovery. Your prayers have been answered!!!! Thank you also for the support to get through this hardship.

Isabella is officially in remission and will be followed closely for 5 years before she is considered to be cancer free. We plan on getting her central line out soon and then she can start living life like a normal toddler again.

James 5:15 And the prayer offered in faith will make the sick person well.

Bella Pollard: Home for the Holidays

Bella Pollard had surgery on November 28th to remove the tumor in her abdomen.  The surgery was successful!  The surgeon says he got 100% of the tumor without hurting her kidney!  Miss Bella spent three weeks in the hospital in Boston.

Mom, Noel, says Bella and Dad, Bo, have returned to their home in Hawaii safely yesterday.  Baby brother, Jackson was so happy to see them that he didn't sleep all night!

Bella will have many follow up tests to see if all the cancer is gone.  They are hopeful that she will no longer need chemotherapy.

Merry Christmas to the Pollard Family!  Feel free to follow their story by clicking HERE.

Current Auction: For the Soldiers

All the funds raised will be used to purchase items to ship overseas to our service men and women to give them holiday cheer and extend our thankfulness for their duties. For this service project, we will be documenting it completely with photos from shopping for care package items to packaging to shipping them off. We will also ask the soldiers to send us communications to share with you all.

NOTE: All the photos soldiers in this graphic are just random photos I found online. If you have a friend or family member deployed during the holiday season, please send me an email at fromtheheartauctions@gmail.com with their name, photo, and mailing address and we will add them to this album for others to send items as they choose.

Our packages from the proceeds of this auction will be going to anonymous soldiers that none of our admins and/or vendors know in order to "keep things fair". :-)

Smiles for Samantha - Chili's December Event

Smiles for Samantha, a foundation set up to help domestic violence victim Samantha Falbo and family pay for medical expenses, is having a December fundraiser at Chili's in Bolingbrook, Illinois.

Via Tina Falbo:

The Chilis at the corner of Boughton Road and Weber Road has dedicated the month of December to Smiles for Samantha. For the entire month of December, anybody eating at Chilis that presents the Smiles for Samantha ticket, Chilis will donate 10% towards Samantha's cause. This is a great opportunity for everybody to help without having to hold an event on a specific night. Simply drop in to Chilis for lunch or dinner, pick up or dine in, present your ticket to the server and Chilis donates 10%. They will total up the proceeds after December 31st. You can make as many copies as you would like of the tickets and distribute them to anybody and everybody you know. Any questions, let me know. Remember, this is effective from December 1st thru December 31st, 2011 only at the Bolingbrook Chilis. 

You can download and print of tickets through this link:  https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=2667004841416&set=o.258591594188810&type=1&theater

Welcome to FTH's Blog!

We've had such great responses with each of our auctions over the last four months.  Our vendors and bidders have genuinely become invested in our beneficiaries lives, which couldn't make us happier!  The outpouring of love and concern for each of our causes led us to begin a blog so that we can keep you updated on how our beneficiaries are doing post-auction.  How they have used the money we have raised for them, how they have fared in medical procedures and just general life.

With this blog we will be sharing as much as we can about our beneficiaries as the information is given to us.  We will also give you links to their public carepages and/or blogs to allow you to follow their stories on your own.  We'll pass on any photos and notes given to us to all of you who have let them into your hearts.  Please remember that we will always be keeping their safety and privacy in mind, so there may be stuff we will not be able to post publicly.  We can only pass on that which they are allowing us to share.  We trust you understand this.

We also intend on using this blog to document any service projects FTH does with funds from auctions.  We'll write up our experiences and post photos.  We hope you feel like you are right there with us as you are very much a huge part of what we are doing!

As always, we encourage you to pass on both this blog and our page url (www.facebook.com/fromtheheartauctions) so that we can reach more people.  The more people who know about us, the more we can help those in need.  So share the love!