Dear Family & Friends,

As many of you know, my niece McKenna Elise Conrad is a happy and energetic child full of squeals and giggles for all that have the pleasure of meeting her.  What some of you may not know is that she was born with a cleft lip and cleft palate.  At only 14 months old, McKenna has already undergone numerous medical procedures, been placed under anesthesia 5 times, had a painful appliance to restructure her mouth and had stitches to repair her cleft lip.  On March 6th, McKenna received her 6th surgery to repair her cleft palate.  The surgery was a rough process and unfortunately McKenna had to stay in the hospital for an additional day until she was able to finally eat albeit through a syringe. 

Over the past year, the Conrad’s primary objective was to make McKenna’s life a happy one by providing the necessary surgeries to help McKenna breathe and eat normally.  They have endured long trips between Panama City and Tampa, Florida to find McKenna the best care imaginable. 

My older sister, Danielle and I have been struggling to find ways to help my younger sister and her wonderful family during these difficult times.  Through Danielle’s ingenuity and creativity, she came up with the idea to design a digital scrapbooking kit that she could display on her popular website www.scrapoutsidethebox.com to help raise money for McKenna’s extensive medical bills.  She worked with some other creative designers to create a beautiful scrapbooking kit called "A Mother’s Love" available for sale with all the proceeds benefiting the Hope for McKenna fundraising effort.

For those of you that do not participate in digital scrapbooking but would still like to help, we are accepting donations towards the families medical bills. It goes without saying that these are trying times for everyone financially but if you have the means to lend even a dollar or two, it would mean so much to us.

We invite you and your loved ones to visit the new blog http://hopeformckenna.blogspot.com/ to learn her story and keep up with her progress as she grows into a beautiful young girl.  Please, keep her and her family, Tracy, Jimi and Bela Marie, in your prayers. 

With much love and admiration,

Brandy Pate

http://hopeformckenna.blogspot.com

www.cookingwithbrandy.com

www.scrapoutsidethebox.com

Please visit Hope for McKenna and help our little niece