LLS Man Of The Year: part II

This week was an amazing week... in many regards. ONEHOPE is growing at lightning pace. Our ability to serve the community and the causes we live for is also growing exponentially, and for that we are thankful and excited.

However this day, this week, and this post is not dedicated to ONEHOPE. It is dedicated to my fundraising efforts for The Leukemia Lymphoma Society, and to Jon Wilhite. Ironically my goal for each update, ("to make you laugh, cry and be moved to tears"-Jimmy V) were all touched upon during my week; ... I laughed, I thought, and my emotions moved me to tears.

I laughed: This week a couple of my colleagues and I had the honor of being nominated to the "Top 40 Under 40" in Orange County. With the amount of brilliant business people there are in Orange County we were humbled by this opportunity. The three of us were not used to doing a photo shoot, and we were giddy like I remember my soccer team being during team pictures when I was 10. Remembering a great memory like picture days during my younger days in sports, made the day really enjoyable for me. I was getting recognition with two of my best buddies and two of my most trusted colleagues, and for that reason I found myself laughing quite a bit. Tom of course made sure that we thanked our favorite italian food restaurant and first account (Mama D's in Newport Beach) by shattering a bottle of Zinfandel on their floor. I'm really looking forward to seeing the pictures. It was a wonderful day.

I thought: I thought a lot about my campaign for The Leukemia Lymphoma Society. I have a great friend and colleague (Josh Enders) leading the planning of an event in Mid May to raise money for my LLS Campaign. What an amazing thing to have 4 people spend their time and commit to something for you and a great cause. I am thankful for people like that in my life. The event will be amazing and 100% of the proceeds will be donated.

In my thoughts about the campaign we also put our first ONEHOPE private label up on the website. 100% of the profits on the private label are going to be donated to LLS. You can find this bottle in the "purchase wine" section on www.ONEHOPEWINE.com . It retails for $25/bottle, and if you buy a case you save $45 plus you get free shipping. Anyone who donates $250 or more will get a free case of this private label with their donation ($300 value). Please go to the following link if you are interested in donating to my campaign and the fight against blood cancers http://gsf.llsevent.org/pledge/index.cfm?mid=ONEHOPE . I sincerely appreciate all your support.

In my thoughts about the campaign we also introduced our first Online Charity Partnership with LLS. We created a custom ONEHOPE site for them at www.ONEHOPEWINE.com/lls. Everything ordered by supporters through this site (wine, giftbaskets, merchandise, apparel) is 20% off to thank them for their support of a great cause. In addition another 20% of the net sales will be donated to The Leukemia Lymphoma Society.

Lastly, I thought about LLS today when Morgan Lewis , one of the people I am dedicating my campaign to, called me. Morgan is a cancer survivor and is the reason I started ONEHOPE and my campaign with LLS. When she called me to get input on how she could help fundraise for a friend who is suffering from colon cancer it made me think and it made me proud. I thought about the humanity behind suffering from cancer, recovering from cancer, and then helping others battle. I was proud of that kind of humanity in society. I will explain my thoughts about this in more detail in a post down the road...

My emotions moved me to tears: On April 9th at 12:30 am Jon Wilhite, a buddy of mine, (and brother of my good friend Mike) was involved in the car accident in which Los Angeles Angels pitcher Nick Adenhart and two others were tragically killed. Jon is a wonderful and energetic guy and it broke my heart to get the phone call with the news that he was in the car. The situation moved me to tears at times during the past week. Yesterday I got a call from his brother after Jon had gone into surgery telling me everything was looking positive and he seemed to be doing really well. This call moved me to tears in a totally different way than the call earlier in the week. The Wilhites really seem to be channeling their energy in the right direction and making the best out of the situation. They are thankful for your thoughts over the course of the next week.

I am publicly committing to make a major effort to fight drunk driving. If you have any thoughts on good ways to raise money and awareness for drinking and driving or the LLS campaign, please join me in my efforts by leaving thoughts behind in the form of a comment or e-mail.

Love,

Jake