To my wonderful friends, awesome neighbors, news media, everyone in our community and those who reached from afar to join us for our first Cure JM concert...

I have the preliminary, unofficial numbers to share with you. Once again, I want to make clear – these are unofficial numbers. As you can guess, I am at the end of my Rockstar energy drinks that have kept me alive through this event!!! So my math may be slightly off but I think I am pretty close.

We took in 765 ticket stubs at our ticket counting turnstiles on Saturday – I am thinking we may have missed a ticket or two because it sure looked like more than 763 :-)  I think it was more like 1526……….Oh wait I was probably thinking double because I could see both rows of teeth on every person at the event. There was not a single person that gave Elmo a hug with a frown on their face, or a single child taking pictures with the princess, a teenager fitting that rockstar cap to his head or any of the many in line for a character drawing, balloon animal or waiting to get an autograph from the many talented artists. Maybe it was the line of kids racing though the stadium chasing the launched t-shirts hoping they would catch it on its descent from a 100 yrd launch. Wait, wait - Maybe I was counting the stringer of balloons that was waving around the stadium looking for a kids hand to tie to or possibly the bubbles on the two kids that dared to drown themselves in the foam pit. Or was it possibly the Dutch bro’s straws of those drinking the best coffee drinks made on earth!!! Who knows what I was counting thinking we had about 1500 people all clothed in Cure JM T-shirts!!! which BTW is the latest trend of fashion apparel this year. If you’re not wearing a Cure JM T-shirt this year at the first day of school……..Well ……………maybe you missed the best concert of the year!!!!

Wait, wait, wait, I remember what it was I was counting – The number of times Khang spun in a circle on his hands in the center of the football field to the tunes of Guns and Roses!!!! That kid can dance!

Here is what I do know – After counting the cash in the donation bins, the on-line ticket sales of Mason bucks, concert tickets, princess party tickets, on-line auction items, money donated from our sponsors, parking, first giving sites, donations over the last several months from the wonderful schools (Brown junior high, Century high school, Ladd Acres, Imlay)

We brought in a grand total of $42,579.33 total revenue. I do not have the final count on the total Intel hours put into this project yet but I am going to guesstimate that we hit the 1000 mark which would add another 10K to the total - taking us to 52K. Now some of the money is Mason buck sales so we will need to reimburse some of this as well as the cost of the event itself. We were able to capture the full $5000.00 extra from the Stewart foundation in matching money (How awesome is that?)

I have so many people to thank for making this event a huge success. Every single person that helped with this event should be proud. Did we fill the stadium? That is the question that I have rolled through my head since Saturday night after looking through the audience as I was up on stage. And I will say this to each of you today – We packed that stadium – We packed that stadium with hope, love, laughter, smiles, courage, strength, optimism, encouragement and energy. As I looked across the crowd as I was telling Mason’s story, I could feel the love and energy that existed within. There were a minimum of 758 people there on Saturday who looked at each of those kids battling JM and said without speaking a word – “I am here to help you”. Each of those children were able to leave the stadium on Saturday with more strength than they came with because of the love and positive energy that was shared with them.

So for that - stand tall and be proud!!! That stadium was full.

Next year we will shrink the dimensions and double the transistors J (Sorry – Geek Intel humor) :-) 

And one last thanks to each of the performing acts – Thank you for singing my little buddy home – The gift of music is powerful. Mason is coming home tomorrow - Well – looking at the clock right now I guess it will be today. If you would have been in the ICU in San Diego with him in January you would understand what is meant when I say Mason’s health today is truly a Miracle!!!

Sincerely,
Damon, Mason and Family