peter
“My mom was diagnosed with stage four lung cancer in December 2016. I don’t know the exact date, because she didn’t tell me until the week after the Late Late Toy Show. The Toy Show marked the start of Christmas for my family and it was a huge tradition. Every year, all four of us would get together; grandma would take a day off of Bingo, and mom and dad would come home early from work. We would cook up a bunch of snacks and sit down and eat our dinner in front of the TV. I always looked forward to the Toy Show with the same excitement as Christmas Day. I remember, she was in the hospital the week before, she had been coughing for a while but I thought it was just a bad chest infection. Later, it turned out she had demanded to be released from the hospital before the Toy Show so we didn’t miss out on our tradition. That’s just how she was. There were three things my mother loved; She loved travelling, she loved elephants and she was passionate about helping other people. Since she was young, she worked with organisations that help homeless, or disabled people and underprivileged children. She also loved travelling. We used to spend the summer months in Thailand helping my dad with his business. It was my mom’s favourite place since she travelled there with my father for the first time. My mother had never been a fan of zoo’s so it was in Thailand where she saw elephants for the first time. After that, they became her favourite animals. Ever since I remember, elephants of all kinds decorated our house. After she died I wanted to make sure that we would find a way to keep her memory alive using the things she loved. That’s how we had the idea of Helen’s Rocks; we ask people to paint elephants onto rocks and put them in as many places as possible to remember my mom’s love for travelling and elephants. For every rock, €5 is donated to cancer research and patients. Since last year, people from 28 different countries painted rocks and we were able to donate over €4,000 for cancer research.”
You can donate to help the cancer research here:
https://www.gofundme.com/f/helen039s-rocks-initiative-help-cancer-patients
Or you can make a rock!
Here is how:
Step 1: Find a suitable rock and clean it off.
Step 2: Using any paints or marker you want, make any design you want, but please make sure that there is an elephant and the name ‘Helen’ on it.
Step 3: Write @helensrocks or helensrocks.com on the back.
Step 4: Put it somewhere you like. It can be a mountain or a town, or even next to a flower patch you found pretty.
Step 5: Take photos of the rock and the surrounding area.
Step 6: Send them to us, and we’ll handle the rest!