My mother in-law recently passed away after succumbing to cancer. Thinking back on that loss, my wife Ardell and I will never forget how touched we were with the folks at the Hospice. The care and compassion shown by everyone involved was consistently demonstrated daily. It takes special people, with kind hearts and a passion to help others to deliver that sort of care at a time like this. The organization relies solely on fund raising and donations to finance their operation so, for these reasons, it seemed an easy decision to turn my project into something that would raise money to help perpetuate their great work.

Since building guitars is a passion of mine I decided to build and donate a guitar to raise money through a raffle. And so it was that “Sound of Caring” fund raiser came to be.

The People involved are truly extraordinary people. I have never even met some of the people who became instrumental in the success of this project but I was amazed how everyone has been so willing to just jump in and get involved to help me make this happen.

Special thanks to my wife Ardell, she really inspired me to do this project and has been with me 100% along the way. Ardell distributed all the tickets and she is so organized. She makes whatever I do so much easier. She has also sold many tickets herself.

When I mentioned to my daughter Danielle what I wanted to do she told me she has a friend Kelly Donnelly who loves anything Hospice and suggested I contact her for some help in the area of fund raising. I did and Kelly is an amazing person, she is so inspiring and not only provided guidance but took on so much herself. I wish to acknowledge her for this. Kelly and I hadn’t met in person until the project was well on its way, yet it felt like we’ve known each other for a while.

Another person who deserves acknowledgment is Beth at Split-Second printing company who offered to print the Posters and all of the raffle tickets in full colour for free. How awesome is that! Beth is a great person whom I only recently had the honour of meeting in person. But we had great conversations on the phone.

Rachel and Eileen from the Hospice centres; both amazing people who are very knowledgeable. I would also like to acknowledge Rachel for taking on the radio aspect of things and the social media. Eileen, for helping in the ticket sales and for entertaining my family during my home introduction for Landmark.

Ken and Janet Harnden at Pinnacle, what amazing people those two are, they sold many tickets and also hung the guitar at their store. They really got into this project, so inspiring. Thank you so much for that.

Cole, from Cool100 and Hits 95.5 radio, generously offered to host us on both stations for the morning shows for a week. The audience would get a chance to win some tickets. They also generously agreed to post the project details on the Web sites for both radio stations for the duration of the raffle. Cole also applied for Rachel and I to do an on air interview where we could talk about the project goal and to raise awareness of what Hospice does. It’s so inspiring to see so many people helping out with this project.