Karyn's Community

Hello all...
While we digest the news and send our thoughts to Karyn and Julian, I want you to know that the idea for forming an outlet for all of your energy is already starting to grow. We're calling it Karyn's Community.

This idea is inspired by an article in the October 2005 REAL SIMPLE magazine called: "Group Therapy: How one collection of women came up with the ideal solution to help, support and comfort a friend diagnosed with cancer. They call themselves 'Teams Leslie.'" The gist of the article and the idea behind Karyn's Community is to come up with a system/schedule of sorts for people to help (even from another state or country) pick up Karyn and Julian's spirits. It could be a meal dropped off at their doorstep; a trip to the park for Aidan and Lieneka; a well-timed email, card, gift or bunch of flowers; or an evening out for Julian. The goals are to prevent them from being overwhelmed by the rush of people who want to help at the onset; save friends from worrying about whether they are doing too much or too little; and spread out everyone's efforts over the full course of Karyn's recovery.

One more thing we'd like to create is a website or blog--a central place for people to go to find out information, but possibly also be able to leave messages to Karyn and Julian. I know their email boxes are getting full! If anyone has the technical ability to set this up or wants to be involved in the design of it (which we know is important to Karyn!), please contact me.

Once Karyn is home and more is known about the course of her recovery, we'll be in touch.

*susan