Second Announcement of 2011: Helping Others

Dear Bit of Whimsy Dolls family, please spend a few minutes to read this post of our second big announcement for 2011 – Helping Others – and our first related charitable partnership with Team Getty Owl for the month of February.

Sarah and I would like to call attention to a sweet little girl named Getty who is not yet one year old and battling a degenerative muscle condition called Spinal Muscular Atrphy (SMA) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spinal_muscular_atrophy.  We were made aware of Getty (nicknamed Getty Owl by her parents) about a month ago by a fellow BOWD fan and our hearts have been truly touched. I’ll cut to the chase and then come back around with a big picture perspective…

The Chase:  Sarah and I have partnered with Team Getty Owl and will donate half of all sales of our Olivia Owl pattern http://www.bitofwhimsydolls.com/item/Olivia_Owl_PDF_Pattern/244/c48 for the entire month of February to raise money for Getty Owl as the search for a cure to SMA continues. Throughout the month, we’ll be mentioning Getty Owl in our social media circles with the hope of increasing awareness for SMA and Getty specifically.  If your circumstances permit, please consider picking up an Olivia Owl pattern or (better yet) donate directly to Getty Owl on her website at http://gettyowl.com. The Getty Owl facebook page is http://www.facebook.com/pages/Getty-Owl/169917196356343 and Team Getty Owl has done an amazing job of rallying people to help in so many creative ways as evidenced by the continuous stream of announcements. This is one active page! We thank you in advance for anything you are able to do to help the beautiful Getty Owl.

The Bigger Picture: Sarah and I have made reference that this will be an exciting year of positive changes as Bit of Whimsy Dolls continues to grow.  The first big change was the across-the-board price reductions on our Original finished dolls as we’ve found ways to reduce our costs and pass the savings to you.  There are many more big and small changes we have sketched out (and are working on in the background in some cases) for this year as the appeal of Original Bit of Whimsy Dolls continues to grow with your support and ‘word of mouth’ marketing!

Now it’s time to make our second big announcement – We want to demonstrate the amazing charitable influence of you, the Bit of Whimsy Dolls community, by partnering with select charities or other noteworthy causes.  We’ve seen over the past couple years how giving you are as evidenced by our Boo Bear ‘Pay it Forward’ pattern program and how we’ve been contacted by so many of you wanting to buy a pattern to make dolls for orphanages or other under privileged children. While not necessarily limited to children, we envision the majority of our partnerships going toward matters involving children. Moreover, it is our hope that we find various causes that are brought to our attention by you – the extended BOWD family.  Our goal is to have one charity or cause to support each month for 2011 with February dedicated to Getty Owl.  As a community, we’re in this together and together we will do our best to take care of our ‘BOWD family’ first.

Sarah and I will review all suggestions and make our selections and announcements at the beginning of each month.  We’d like to thank you in advance for your support each month and hope you understand should we select one cause over another at any time.

Sincerely,

Sarah and Rob

Bit of Whimsy Dolls, LLC