February 09 - Our Official TM Charity is...

EndlessTwilight · **Posted:** Wed Feb 11, 2009 1:42 am

There were so many wonderful charities to choose from. We thought about choosing one of our past spotlighted charities or going with a completely new one, but as I was researching our December Charity of the Month, I was so touched by the story of Alex and her Lemonade Stand. I knew in my heart that this was the charity for us and as I pondered this further, a vision of our official charity logo came into my mind:

photo by Mike Harmon
graphic text by Kirsten Starkweather
arms modeled by Britten Johnson

So I felt it was just perfect and meant to be! We could have gone with a charity for women's heart disease, breast cancer or shelters, or we could have tried to keep within the vampire theme and gone with a blood drive but after all, we are TwilightMOMS. Whether you are an actual mom or not doesn't matter. Each woman is a mom in her own right because it is our instinct to take care of those around us. We are the MOMS of the Twilight world so what better way to celebrate our nature than to focus our efforts on a children's charity and help little Alex keep her lemonade stand dream alive? That and we had such a huge success with our first lemonade stand at the TwilightMOMS Utah Movie Premier so I wanted to keep our momentum going!

If you haven't read about this charity yet you can do so in our spotlight about it in December here.

The great thing about this charity is that we have our own page on the website here where you can make donations in the name of TwilightMOMS and they also make it super easy to host your own lemonade stand anywhere you need to! We will be able to set up lemonade stands at each and every official TwilightMOMS event from movie premiers to showings at local theaters to benefit our charity. We are currently putting together a committee for this charity and in the coming months will be featuring different aspects of Alex's Lemonade Stand in order to further educate all of us about childhood leukemia and ways we can host stands and raise more money for this wonderful cause.

We will also be doing away with our monthly spotlight for different charities but don't worry! We will instead be featuring something specific about Alex's Lemonade Stand monthly or focusing on a different charity that is close to a TwilightMOMS heart since we still have so many great suggestions for organizations that have helped some of our members in need.

So to kick off this announcement, an Etsy friend of mine and TwilightTEEN, Shielou, volunteered to make one of her awesome jewelry items to auction off on ebay for Alex's Lemonade Stand! She makes her own Twilight character pendants out of Sculpty Clay and they are too cute for words!! Here are some pictures of 2 items I recently bought from her:

This is a custom order I had her make for me. Bella even has a little cast on and tiny painted flowers on her sweater. Is that not so adorable?

And here are some other recent items she has made:

Mini Edward and the Massacre at Little Isle Esme

Biting a tiny pillow!! Tee hee!

Bella is holding her "edible art".

Cullen Baseball bracelet

(To see a complete list of all her items you can check them out in her "sold" section of her shop here: http://www.etsy.com/shop_sold.php?user_id=6289058)

To follow Shielou's (pronounced Shy-low) jewelry making shenanigans, you can read her blog here: http://shielou.blogspot.com/ and visit her Etsy shop here: http://www.etsy.com/shop.php?user_id=6289058. You'll definitely want to mark her as one of your favorites!!

Stay tuned - we will make an announcement about the auction item as soon as she makes it!

tevya · **Posted:** Wed Feb 11, 2009 1:50 am

I cannot tell you how excited I am about this! I have read about Alex's Lemonade Stand and have been involved in one Lemonade Stand fundraiser in the past. This is a charity that I can get behind 100%. Alex's story should speak to us all as women, but as a mother and a teacher, and a children's advocate as well, it goes right to my heart. Thank you for allowing TMs to support such a wonderful cause.

And Shielou's jewelry is so darn cute! Very creative!

EndlessTwilight · **Posted:** Wed Feb 11, 2009 1:53 am

Thanks! I'm so glad you approve!

Klemz · **Posted:** Wed Feb 11, 2009 3:28 am

All I can say is YAY!! When I saw the choice I actually cried...

My husband and I read about Alex's Lemonade Stand in a magazine last fall and we were both reduced to tears. I was so excited to be a small part of the fundraiser efforts for the charity at our Utah movie premiere event. I enjoyed reading your write up here and the reasons behind the choice. I'm so excited about being able to host another Lemonade Stand at our New Moon event later this year!

And Shielou's creations are just perfect little works of art! She is so talented!

hfiles28 · **Posted:** Wed Feb 11, 2009 5:38 am

When I read this I too cried. I am so glad that TM's has chosen Alex's lemonade stand. I was glad to be part of the planning committee in Nov for the movie. I wear my bracelets all the time and get excited when people ask where and how I got them. I enjoy telling them that I am a member of TwilightMoms.com and we did a fundraiser for Alex's lemonade stand with the bracelets. I now am able to be more excited about talking about them and even more proud that I a member of this site.

I remember when I moved to UT about 4 and half years ago and Alex's was featured on the news and I was so touched then by the story and look forward to help others that are going through this experience.

Thanks TwilightMoms

mom4carlyle · **Posted:** Wed Feb 11, 2009 2:20 pm

Apparently being a TwilightMom also involves crying. I had heard of Alex's Lemonade stand a few years ago. I did not actually visit the website and read the whole story until last fall when I was on the planning committee for the movie event in Utah. I visited the website and started crying. I think all of us on the committe were deeply touched and honored to be able to have Alex's Lemonade stand as our charity for the movie.

I have a real soft spot for this charity for personal reasons. So when I saw that TwilightMoms was making Alex's Lemonade Stand their official charity, I cried again, then cheered. I think it is the charity that trully exemplifies that we are first and formost moms. I know of several TwilightMoms that are not officially moms but they all have that nuturing, giving side to them that is what a "mom" trully is.

I love Sheilou's jewelry and I am such a Twilight jewelry junkie that I will have to buy some.

Thank you so much for choosing Alex's Lemonade Stand as our charity.

Forcelle · **Posted:** Wed Feb 11, 2009 3:30 pm

OME! I'm excited about the charity and think its perfect, but holy crow those little Cullens are adorable!!!!! I have to get the Alice baseball one to go with my alice baseball costume! They are adorable!

sykin · **Posted:** Wed Feb 11, 2009 6:51 pm

I absolutely LOVE her stuff...

nebirkett · **Posted:** Wed Feb 11, 2009 7:05 pm

Wonderful choice! Thank you.

renesmeesmom · **Posted:** Wed Feb 11, 2009 7:10 pm

I am so thrilled at the choice of Alex's Lemonade Stand for the TM official charity!! This organization raises money, not only for leukemia research, but for ALL pediatric cancers. My daughter is a Medulloblastoma (brain cancer) survivor, so this charity is very important to me, and I am in tears now thinking about how wonderful it is that I am part of such a wonderful group of women and now we're all part of such an important cause!

I've known way too many children who have passed away from various pediatric cancers since my daughter was diagnosed in 2001, and the only way to help is to get the word out and raise the much-needed money for research!

I know it's months away, but September is National Childhood Cancer Awareness Month. Too often it gets overlooked in the lead-up to October as Breast Cancer Awareness Month. Let's all do our part this year and make sure that everyone knows what September stands for! Our children need our help!

(Okay, off my soapbox now!)

EndlessTwilight · **Posted:** Wed Feb 11, 2009 7:16 pm

I'm so glad I wasn't the only one crying my eyes out when I read about this charity. LOL!

In fact, I was getting into the ugly cry....it wasn't pretty.

I'm so glad you all are excited for this to be our charity!!!!

Thank you for that little testimonial, renesmeesmom. I also had 2 friends of mine die from luekemia so it is close to my heart as well.

We will certainly be doing something special in September for Childhood Cancer Awareness!

*gypsy wings* · **Posted:** Wed Feb 11, 2009 11:14 pm

I too am in tears! I am so happy we chose this, and the logo ROCKS!!!

I bought some Lemonade flavored Mike and Ike's when I was going to see Underworld a couple weeks ago because some of the money went to Alex's Lemonade stand :)

And Sheilou is A.MAZ.ING. I adore her stuff.

Topazlove · **Posted:** Thu Feb 12, 2009 12:15 am

This is FABULOUS!!! Alex's Lemonade Stand is a wonderful charity. Great decision!!

arizonaliz · **Posted:** Thu Feb 12, 2009 3:48 am

Great choice on the charity. What a perfect cause.

LOVE the jewelry! So cute!

hfiles28 · **Posted:** Thu Feb 12, 2009 7:31 am

*gypsy wings* wrote:

I too am in tears! I am so happy we chose this, and the logo ROCKS!!!

I bought some Lemonade flavored Mike and Ike's when I was going to see Underworld a couple weeks ago because some of the money went to Alex's Lemonade stand :)

And Sheilou is A.MAZ.ING. I adore her stuff.

Yes I love the logo as well. It is so perfect.

February 09 - Our Official TM Charity is...

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