08/28/2025
In a few short months our project will have formally been in existence for 11 years. We actually started when we were in the hospital. Phyl loved that we could help out other families paying for travel, lodging expenses, purchasing meals, or even purchasing needed medical equipment. I cannot even count the number of meals, pizzas, cookies, and doughnuts that we have given away to hospital and clinic staff along with patients and care givers. We just saw people who would never ask for help, but it was obvious that they deserved it.
Our mission has been to provide what we call Small Blessings, perhaps to give a moment of positive feelings. That blessing might just give them a moment of relief, and perhaps a little more Love, Strength, Courage, Faith, and Hope. See for many people the target isn’t weeks, months, or years, it’s surviving a moment at a time to get to the next day. If we can help brighten up a moment perhaps a day…we all win.
We do not have a target age, no target cancer, just a target of good people. We have gifted children who were only weeks old all of the way to senior citizens. The list of things people have needed is long and sometimes a little crazy. So to all of you that help us, you know you are The Hudson Project and your support is greatly appreciated. However, again it is the person. If you want to help someone through or missions that would be amazing, however we are just as happy if you help anyone in any situation who appears to need a Small Blessing.
I thought of this post as yesterday I was waiting to sign in to get a haircut and a young man in front of me was trying to figure out if he could use his last $13 and what was left on a handful of gift cards to get a haircut. I did not care if he was going on a job interview or even meeting someone for a date. He was trying and was not asking for a break. So I picked up his haircut and made him tip the stylist. Little things matter, we love to anonymously pay for a person or couples meal at restaurants, put up someone shopping card in the store parking lot, help someone that is a few dollars short, or like last week just paid for a few items for a senior citizen who was simply struggling to use their debit card. As always I tell people I am only nice once per day and I used it on them.
Thank you for caring
If interested this following post was from October 2021 and explains the foundational thoughts of our charity.
Our experiences in dealing with cancer led to our charities idea of Love, Strength, Courage, Faith, and Hope. These were driven from one side by Phyl’s love for her Great Dane Hudson and on the other from what we observed as the driving forces needed in weathering the course as we faced the possibility of the end of life. Thus our idea of Small Blessings.
To this end, Love is the most powerful thing. We will hold on to love, be driven by love, and even be encouraged and motivated by love. We saw love as the overarching need to fight each day. Over the course of time, we saw people with large support systems and obviously bestowed with love, and others that were alone and distressed. We saw families that abandoned cancer patients and even both husbands and wives that abandoned their spouses, either when they were diagnosis or when they just couldn’t handle the stress of being a caregiver anymore. For all of those, Love can still be shown and appreciated through caregivers, other patients, and even from strangers.
Maintaining physical Strength is a challenge for both patients and caregivers. However, in this context we focus on mental strength. That strength, individually or combined with a support system, is what helps us carry on even in the darkest days. During the course of these kinds of illnesses there are many ups and downs. Sometimes there is a positive that is then immediately dashed by the next negative. Leveraging a positive environment, including everyone you let around you, can give you Strength to manage through the challenges.
Courage allows us to face things that scare us. Most people never realize the courage that we have within ourselves, but again the love and strength of those around us can help build on that internal drive toward a positive outcome or provide support through challenges and depression that comes with the unknown. People react to the love and strength of those around them. Where our physical and mental strength will sometimes wain, the courage within and supported by our environment lifts us up and gives us courage to face the next step.
Faith allows us to trust in something, someone, or in an outcome. Unfortunately, not everyone that has faith that they can be in the statical percentage of those that beat their cancer will do so. However, to defeat it or not, you have to have the faith that you can. For some people faith is based in religion, others support their faith through prior experiences and observations. Faith works to support and enhance our courage and strength in facing adversity. As in our journey, many times you feel you are improving and seemingly out of nowhere something else hits. As in all stages in the journey, you have to focus on the potential to be among the percentage of those that reach a positive outcome.
Hope in this context is simply the expectation or desire that you will live a long and as normal a life as possible. Hope gives us the expectation, Strength helps us keep moving forward, Courage allow us to face adversity, Faith provides trust, and Love ties these all tother. These factors can be supported by a spouse, family, friends, a pet(s), or even just someone’s love for life. Sometimes when things are tough and have been for awhile, even little things can give you a respite.
Our mission has been to provide what we call Small Blessings, perhaps to give a moment of positive feelings, to show people that even strangers care. That blessing might just give them a moment of relief, and perhaps a little more Love, Strength, Courage, Faith, and Hope.
Small Blessings can lead to bigger ones.
