Hey, everybody,

For several years my family has given and been given donations to causes we each thought the other would be pleased about. For those of us who already have more-than-plenty, it is a lovely tradition.

I heard on the radio the other day a plan that even improves on this: Why not write a letter to your family, stating that you and your family would be happy to celebrate the season with time spent with each other and with love and prayers from those who can't be close. If, however, someone chooses to gift you with a gift of any sort, you would request that they send a gift to OCF in your name, since it is an organization close to your heart, an important part of your recovery, and a beacon of hope and a source of information for all who are victims of Oral Cancer. (Provide the address to make it easier for them!)(Brian, what would be the best address to use for donations?)

You can reciprocate, of course, by letting them know that you would like to do the same for them, by making a donation to a cause important to them, or, if they prefer, you will make a donation to OCF in their names.

Another alternative is to make a donation to OCF in the names of all your gift recipients. You could write them a sweet note on pretty paper, saying that you thank them for their love and support during your recovery from oral cancer, and that since they are likely aware of the important role that OCF has also played in your recovery, you want to make a donation to OCF in their names, so that the website will continue to grow to support others.

XO

August - it is a very kind and thoughtful idea. We are always struggling to make it from month to month, and December is when we hope that "good will towards men" means donations to organizations that try to do good with it (and not spend it all on more fundraising). Even if someone gives some OCF note cards to someone, it adds a few dollars to the pot that makes sure that we can carry on. It this difficult economy we anticipate that it will be even more difficult this season for people to support worthy causes - and harder for those that provide services and help to do so. That doesn't mean we will ever charge for a newsletter, or the board access, or the continued access to the information that the site provides. There will always be a way. We will just have to put off some of the bigger idea projects. $5.00 makes a difference. Even a small token amount when multiplied by thousands of people makes many things possible. Thank you for bringing the subject up. I often feel guilty being the one to always be asking, when those here are already having such a tough time of things.

I think that the easiest thing for me, personally, to do will be to write a letter, as above, count my people, and multiply my small donation by that many, and write a check to OCF. In these days of computers, you can make a pretty letter, and I'm sure you can lift a logo from the website somewhere, or you can include an OCF brochure.

Brian, the note cards are gorgeous, and that would be a nice compromise....a gift-in-hand, as well as a donation to OCF.

It's sorta like Public Radio....If you've benefitted from it, you should make some effort, no matter how small, to support it. The same goes for OCF. How lonely and lost would most of us be without it?!? It's our steady rock, a friend in frightening, helpless times, and in times of celebration among friends who understand like no others do, and we need to include it in our gift-giving and our year-end donations.

Brian, is there any page here that we could lift a logo from? Or you can print off the opening page of the website for an inclusion in your gift letter.

I'm just brainstorming here.....anybody else got ideas? suggestions?

XO--Colleen

OCF logos can be downloaded off the site as a jpg on the first page of the web site, press kit link, bottom of the page you can download an OCF or a Paltrow fund logo to you desktop.

Perfect! You've thought of everything. XO

so.....we can download the logo and save it to our computers...and then we could paste it to a blank document and write our Christmas letter.

That's a plan, and I'm relieved to have done my "shopping" already.

The Amazon tie-in is still my favorite. This is what we did last year
_________________________________________________________

It won't hurt a bit. Help us fight Cancer.

If you buy gifts for the holidays from Amazon, please help us in our fight against Oral Cancer.

Oral Cancer claims one life every hour of every day in the U.S. You can help make a difference!

The Oral Cancer Foundation (OCF) is a national public service non-profit entity.

You can support the OCF by shopping at Amazon by using this link at NO cost or obligation!


[img:center]http://kevin.fastbytes.net/OCF_logo.jpg[/img]

This is the rest of the letter I used last year....

Oral cancer is in the closet and needs special attention in its own right. It is not like all other cancers by the very nature of its location. It takes away the most basic and necessary functions of the lives that it destroys.

It goes without saying that life can spin out of control at times and the best we can do is plant our feet in the sand, hold hands and help each other get through the spinning. One of the nurses here at the University of Tennessee Cancer Center told me that the body is a wonderful healing machine and that the mouth heals very quickly and thankfully she is correct. It's been over a year since my chemotherapy treatments and surgery, and 11 months since I finished my last radiation treatment and I am doing very well with 2 clear scans under my belt. The radiation was by far the worst part of my overall treatment but I got through it.

The second biggest help outside of my family, friends and co-workers has been the Oral Cancer Foundation website. The information contained on this site is squarely focused on Head and Neck Cancers. There is a support message board which can be far more important than even the American Cancer Society. The message board is chock full of information, assistance and support, given by people who were going through cancer or helping someone with cancer. Each person there has been touched by the effect of this grossly disgusting disease, from young adults to older adults, from all over the world.

If I was ever an advocate, I would be now for Oral Cancer. This is a dreadful disease and the treatment and surgery can be very ugly. The importance of the board is paramount, especially for people who are unable to talk after surgery to have a place to go to obtain information, compassion and support by the very people who understand what they're going through.

The Oral Cancer Foundation and Oral Cancer in general needs more press. Approximately 34,000 people in the US will be newly diagnosed with oral cancer in 2007. This is the second year in a row in which there has been an increase in the rate of occurrence, this time of about 11% over last year. Worldwide the problem is far greater, with new cases annually exceeding 481,000.

Food for thought....

Kevin

Kevin, I clicked on the Amazon link, but I don't see a place to designate my purchase as an OCF-related purchase. Is it an automatic thing when using this particular link?

I love the idea of sending this link to all of my mailing list, since it will not cost them a cent and might produce some much needed funds for OCF.

Each individual's personal letter will be different, but you have some great phrases that I might borrow!

Thanks.

If you click on the link, you'll note that the URL that comes up includes this:

/homepage.html?ie=UTF8&%2AVersion%2A=1&tag=oralcancerfou-20&link%5Fcode=hom&%2Aentries%2A=0

(boldface and color added by me).

So it's done automatically.

I have saved the page that comes up after clicking on the link (the Amazon home page, but with the "tag=oralcancerfou" in the URL) as my bookmark for Amazon. That way, when I click on my bookmark, the OCF-related page comes up.

How easy is THAT?? I know it's been discussed before, but I am just now tuning in. That's too easy to not send it to your friends. Amazon gets a ton of orders this time of year, and we might as well benefit.

XO