Year: 2015

A Word from Log A Load Foundation Chair, Sherri Hansen

It has been a very busy summer for many of us. Now, with the fall season well underway, I would like to introduce Kelley Mitchell with Children’s Miracle Network Hospitals. Kelley is Log A Load For Kids® CMNH Corporate Partnership coordinator. I have met Kelley and am looking forward to working with her to promote and work with Log A Load State Coordinators to further our fundraising projects. She is very passionate about CMNH and Log A Load For Kids.

I would also like to welcome Diane Rossi with FRA, serving as FRA’s staff liaison for Log A Load. We are all looking forward to working with her, too.

As our year-end is quickly approaching, we are gearing up for more fundraising successes. I wish all of you the very best in these final weeks of 2015!

My name is Kelley Mitchell and I am the account director from Children’s Miracle Network Hospitals who will be working with the Log A Load For Kids account. I have been with Children’s Miracle Network Hospitals for over 13 years, so although I have not worked directly with Log A Load before, I have heard many wonderful stories about you over the years. I am looking forward to the opportunity of working with such a wonderful giving partner!

During the 2014 fundraising year, Log A Load raised over $2.24 Million for 24 of our Children’s Miracle Network Hospitals. I am proud to let you know that Log A Load is in our top 15 partners in fundraising totals. You’ve raised over $44 Million in the past 26 years. What an incredible total!

For those of you who have been inside your local Children’s Miracle Network Hospital, you know what wonderful places they are and how grateful they are for your fundraising support. Our children’s hospitals are non-profit hospitals, so they rely on wonderful partners and donors to keep their doors open. All of our hospitals are open 365 days a year, 24 hours a day, so they can treat those children in need. Those children could be your family members, relatives, friends, and neighbors.

Thanks to all of you who have donated your time, talents, and fundraising dollars over the years to support our children’s hospitals.

If you have any questions, or if you need help in starting to fundraise for your local Children’s Miracle Network Hospital, please contact me at kmitchell@cmnhospitals.org or (801) 214-7449.

Thanks again!

And thank you, Kelley!

Sherri Hansen, Chair
Log A Load For Kids® Foundation
Sherrihansen181@gmail.com

MIKE KEIM: LOG A LOAD’S 2015 NATIONAL VOLUNTEER CHAMPION Nashville, Tennessee – The Log A Load For Kids Foundation conferred its 2015 National Log A Load For Kids® Volunteer Champion Award on Mike Keim, of Keim’s Forestry Services, based in Newberry, South Carolina, at the Forest Resources Association’s Annual Awards Dinner, April 28 in Nashville, Tennessee. Mike serves as South Carolina’s Log A Load Chair. Presenting the Award, National Log A Load Foundation Chair, Sherri Hansen, made the announcement that Log A Load For Kids had raised an incredible 2.2 million dollars in 2014 and thanked everyone involved with Log A Load for their efforts. Since Log A Load began in 1988, the campaign has raised over 41 million dollars for kids in need of medical treatment at Children’s Miracle Network Hospitals. Hansen noted the thriving network of volunteers Mike Keim has established across the state of South Carolina. As the South Carolina Log A Load For Kids Chair, Keim devotes countless hours to coordinating efforts, speaking at events and traveling all over the state to spread the word about this important cause. Sherri pointed out how Mike’s energy inspires all participants and has led to donations exceeding $100,000 to Children’s Miracle Network Hospitals in South Carolina every year. Accepting the award, Mike Keim stated that he felt “humbled and honored” and declared that teamwork is what makes the campaign’s success. He thanked FRA, Sherri Hansen, Log A Load For Kids volunteers, Children’s Miracle Network Hospital coordinators, and South Carolina Forestry Association for their support for Log A Load. He stated: “Each and every one of us are champions.” Keim was joined by his wife and two daughters at the Awards Dinner. Under Mike’s enthusiastic and heartfelt leadership, Log A Load For Kids continues to thrive in South Carolina with the best kind of friendly competition there is—seeing who can bring in the most support for America’s most precious resource. Log A Load For Kids is an annual campaign, which encourages loggers and others in the forest products community to donate the value of one load of logs, or any amount, to local Children’s Miracle Network hospitals. Log A Load For Kids is a national leader in CMN fundraising. For more information, or to donate funds to a CMN-affiliated hospital in your area, please visit www.logaload.org.

Last fall, Minnesota Power and Log A Load for Kids Foundation gathered timber industry professionals to the Boulder Lake Management Area in Duluth, MN for a harvest sale to raise money for Gillette. Minnesota Power donated the stumpage while Hull Forest Products and McCabe Forest Products volunteered staff and equipment to harvest and transfer the stumpage. Additional timber industry professionals from SAPPI, Potlatch and the University of Minnesota Duluth taught sustainable forest management to one hundred ninety fourth grade students from three local schools attending the event. One of those students was Gillette Children’s Specialty Healthcare’s 2014 Champion, Michael Ruud.

Students learned about tree identification, tree core sampling to learn the age of a tree, the story tree rings tell about weather history, wildlife and tree growth benefits from logged areas, timber management, harvesting equipment, and end user products from aspen and maple derived dissolving pulp.

These kids enjoyed their time in the woods and learning that harvesting trees can be a good thing. And who knew that dissolving pulp, a tree derived substance produced at SAPPI Fine Paper, can be found in yogurt, makeup, and toothpaste?

Thanks to the Log A Load for Kids collaborative effort of all of the above named participants, $8,300 was raised for Gillette Children’s Specialty Healthcare.

Hello. My name is Sherri Hansen, and it is an honor to be elected as the incoming Chair of the Log A Load For Kids® Foundation Advisory Committee. We would like to thank our past chair, Rich Palermo from Virginia, for his dedication to the Log A Load program. I’m sure Rich will continue to volunteer and support the program with all the enthusasium and energy he has in the past.

My husband John and I live in the small town of Chewelah in Eastern Washington. We have two grown children and three grandchildren that live very close to us. Over the past 40 years, our company has grown to include logging, log hauling, heavy equipment hauling, road construction, and rock products, and we now employ 45.

I have served on Washington State’s Log A Load For Kids committee since the Washington Contract Loggers Association started Washington’s Log A Load program 18 years ago, and I currently chair it.

Eighteen years ago a few WCLA members and staff made a trip to Spokane to a Children’s Miracle Network Hospital for a visit with the staff and some of the patients there. I remember how moved I was to hear the stories from the families about the care and compassion they received from the staff at the hospital, no matter what injury or illness they might have or the family’s ability to pay for the care they received. We knew we could help these children and their families by raising money through Log A Load. We are all so rewarded by doing so. Every minute 62 children enter a CMN Hospital for treatment. The numbers increase every year, and we will do whatever we can to raise funds to support CMN hospitals. If you have not yet visited one, I encourage you to do so. It will be a very touching and memorable experience.

Currently 30 states have Log A Load For Kids programs, supported by logging or forest products associations, to raise money directed entirely to their local children’s hospitals. We thank all of the associations for their support and sponsorship, which have raised over 40 million dollars for local children’s hospitals over the past 26 years.

In September CMN’s Director of Corporate Partnerships, Jared Wall, Rich Palermo, and I attended the American Loggers Council annual conference in Escanaba, Michigan. ALC provided wonderful hospitality and gave Rich the opportunity to speak about the Log A Load For Kids Foundation. We also thank STIHL for donating a chain saw that was auctioned off there, as well as winning bidder Mark Turner of Turner Logging Inc. from Banks, Oregon. Those funds, and other funds raised at the same event, went to children’s hospitals in Wisconsin.

Thanks to everyone at the ALC conference for your hospitality and support. We look forward to attending again this year.

Let’s all work together to make miracles happen for our children.

Please visit our web site, www.logaload.org, and let us know if there is anything we can do to help you. Also, be sure to let us know about your fundraising events, so we can put them on the site.

I wish you all a very Healthy and Prosperous New Year!

Sherri Hansen, Chair
Log A Load For Kids Foundation
Sherrihansen181@gmail.com