|
October, 2022 Friends: As fall season approaches and the new school year starts, the Exceeding Expectations kids are doing just great. Nancy Alvarez is set to graduate from the University of Redlands in April with a degree in Business. Her sister, Fernanda, is a freshman at San Diego State University, and Johana, their cousin, is getting ready for the college application process as she heads towards a June ’23 high school graduation – with honors. All our pre-college kids look to these older kids as role models and are inspired to follow in their footsteps.
The kids recently participated in two very special events: When the Palm Springs Tram Challenge was canceled due to Covid in 2020 and 2021, the kids were very disappointed. Although that’s an extremely tough 3.7-mile uphill run, they just love it. So, as you might remember, we found a wonderful group of volunteers and put on our own Exceeding Expectations ‘21 Tram Challenge last March, which was a great success. This year the official race was back and our kids were ready! EE had three runners finish in the Top 10 and everyone, including two young ones 5 and 7 years old, ran strong. The two little guys hardly seemed to notice the steepness of the hill!
Aramis, Richard and
Ricardo getting ready
Damian, 5, and
Ivan, 7
Immediately following that event, twelve of us made the trip to San Diego for the Challenged Athletes Foundation (CAF) triathlon, aptly called The Best Day in Tri. Five EE members earned their way into the trip during our 10-mile team final training run, and they got to run the 10-mile course along with challenged athletes in San Diego. This is an inspirational event, whether you’re participating or spectating. It’s a day spent with physically challenged athletes who are overcoming tremendous odds and succeeding – a wonderful life lesson for all of us.
Lee with our old friend, Rudy Garcia-Tolson
Kids'
race, always the highlight of the day
Next up is a fun event in early November – Run with Los Muertos – an evening 5K run in Coachella. This is a new experience for EE and we are grateful to the event organizers for hosting the kids.
As you can see, Exceeding Expectations is going strong. As always, our top priority is getting the kids educated which will provide them opportunities to better their lives. Sports, at which they are excelling, teaches them goal setting, focus and responsibility, all of which are critical in being successful – on the field, in the classroom and in life. We thank you for the critical role each of you plays in our success. By the way, a special thanks for those of your who are using Amazon Smile when making purchases on Amazon.com. As you might know, the products and prices are exactly the same as on basic Amazon.com, but EE gets 0.5% of the sale. So far, this has resulted in over $3,000 in donations from Amazon, representing more than $600,000 in purchases by our donors. All you have to do is click the button below and select Exceeding Expectations as your charity, then sign into smile.amazon.com every time you use Amazon.
We'll write again in December. 'Til then, a happy and healthy Thanksgiving to all of you.
-Cherie
|
