Supporting Families of SMA this Fall

This summer a group of people came together to help raise money and awareness for an organization for childhood cancer called the I ROK Foundation.  Again those donations were made possible by

Kristin and Zac Ganzer of Beachbody Fitness
Misty Eales of BeachBody Beachbody Fitness
Tammy Williams Gragg of Casa Bella Salon
Myself, Angela Glenn, with my book , Moms, Monsters, Media & Margaritas

For this coming Fall I again will donate 20% of the book sales for Moms, Monsters, Media & Margaritas to a children's charity. This fall I would like to donate to charities for SMA, Spinal Muscular Atrophy According to Families of SMA, SMA  is a genetic disorder that affects one in 6000 babies and is the number one genetic killer of children under age two. SMA is a fatal disease that slowly destroys the nerves.  One in forty people carry the gene that can lead to SMA in their offspring, which means that 7.5 million Americans are carriers.

There is currently no cure for SMA. Fundraising and raising awareness of this disease is crucial in working towards treatments and hopefully eventually a cure for SMA. I first learned about SMA when I started following Prayers for Nella and then I started following Peyton's Pals and The Great Adventures of Little G. You can learn so much from following these little angels and their families and their heroic fights against this horrible disease. As I learned more about SMA I learned a childhood friend of mine has a niece and nephew that are also fighting this disease. My goal again, besides finally publishing my own book, was to use it as a way to give back to children's charities. With your help I will be able to make my second donation later this Fall to help in the fight against SMA.

With your $5 purchase of your ebook of Moms, Monsters, Media & Margaritas from either Amazon or Barnes and Noble 20% will go towards Families of SMA. If you prefer a print book in your hand with the purchase of your $10 print copy 20% again will go towards Families of SMA.

If you have your own sales business and would like to donate a % of your sales this month to SMA let me know at glennbabies@gmail.com. If you have a personal story about SMA you'd like to see featured and shared here again please email me at glennbabies@gmail.com.


For more information on the PACIFUND Project and Moms, Monsters, Media, & Margaritas  please visit here.



Fighting Childhood Cancer this Summer



I wasn't really sure how I wanted to start this post. As I've been pondering it for a few days a couple things came across my Facebook newsfeed. Two prayer requests from friends on facebook came up asking for prayers for their friends' young children in which one, a little girl about Averi's age was diagnosed with an inoperable brain tumor, and the other was for a friend's son who was just praying for comfort for him and his family as he passed from this world to next from his battle with pediatric cancer. I don't know these people personally, but it doesn't stop my heart from breaking for them.

According the National Cancer Institute, in 2014 alone almost 16,000 children will be diagnosed with cancer. Almost 2,000 will die from cancer this year. Cancer is the number one cause of death by disease in children.

According to the American Childhood Cancer Organization childhood cancer is vastly underfunded with somewhere between $30-$180  million going towards childhood cancer research while breast cancer research gets a little less than $600 million. The American Childhood Cancer Organization contributes this vast difference to the pink ribbon campaign. The success of the pink ribbon campaign for breast cancer has resulted in an increase in the five year survival rate for this group, which is great. This goes to show how raising awareness and advocating for something can make a difference, but now we need to do this for childhood cancer too. The yellow ribbon is the childhood cancer awareness ribbon, and even though I am only one small blogger, one small mom, I hope you'll help me in making a big statement about spreading the word that we need to raise awareness and funds for childhood cancer.

None of us want to hear those dreaded words, "Your child has cancer." There isn't much in life to me that is scarier than that.

Kori Quinn was a thirteen year old girl when she was diagnosed with cancer. As a child herself fighting a horrific disease none of us at any age should have to face, she started an organization called the I ROK Foundation to raise money and awareness for childhood cancer. As the Quinn family explains on their Contact Page,

 "Kori came up with the idea that I-ROK, which is her name spelled backwards,  could also mean "Imagine getting Rid Of Kancer". We know kancer is not spelled correctly, but kancer is a word that no one should know how to spell. We love this idea Kori thought of as it is the basis for our foundation.
The I-ROK Foundation was formed to bring awareness to Ewing's Sarcoma, a form of childhood cancer; to save lives; empower people; to find cures; and to help people and organizations in a variety of ways as they battle cancer. Through events like an annual 5K Run and generous contributions from our partners, sponsors, and supporters, we dare to "Imagine getting Rid Of Kancer."

Her organization I ROK is the first charity I am donating 20% of the sales from Moms, Monsters, Media & Margaritas. At the end of July from the print book sales as that's all that have been reported to me at this time I will be donating $75. However,  a week ago I also published a post on Time with A & N in which I asked for every reader of A & N to donate $5. I am not sure how many granted my request but I do know with my readers' help we broke over $100 for July to donate to the I ROK Foundation.

Several others parents and aunts joined the fight against pediatric cancer in July by donating a portion of their business's commission to the I ROK Foundation.

Kristin and Zac Ganzer of Beachbody Fitness and Products @ www.beachbodycoach.com/kristinganzer donated $245 each

Misty Eales of BeachBody Fitness and Products @ www.beachbodycoach.com/gettinfitwithme also donated $50 for a grand total of over $500 for this Beachbody family.

Tammy Williams Gragg of Casa Bella Salon of Blue Springs, MO also donated $50 from her July tips.

I know our little individual amounts may not seem like much in the grand scheme of things but every little bit counts.None of us want to hear that our child, our niece or nephew, grandson or granddaughter has cancer. We all want our children to live a healthy childhood. Never think it's not your fight though, that there's nothing you can do. There is always something we can do. Pray, spread the word with awareness, donate your time or money however little it even is. You can make a difference in this fight.

As I said before I will be making one more donation with 20% of my Amazon Kindle and Barnes and Noble Nook sales and Leslea McKillip of Pink Zebra Home Fragances is donating 15% of her August sales to the I ROK Foundation. We would love to have another partner or two for August that would love to give to the I ROK Foundation in their pursuit to raise awareness and funds for childhood cancer.

Again if you are a regular A & N reader and didn't make your $5 donation the other day I hope you can grant my request today by visiting the I ROK Foundation Page and following the donation button. You can join the fight against pediatric cancer. You can pray. You can donate. You can support PACI partners or become one yourself by donating a little of your commissions for a month. You can help spread the word. There is always something we can do. This is everyone's fight.

Launch of the PACI Fund Project with the debut of Moms, Monsters, Media & Margaritas

Welcome to the expansion of Time with A & N. This project, Moms, Monsters, Media & Margaritas and the PACI Fund Project,  has been fifteen months in the making so I'm pretty excited to announce its debut. I hope all my loyal readers from A & N will either like PACI's facebook page  or follow us on Twitter at https://twitter.com/pacifundproject  to learn more about the project as it unfolds this summer. If you are new here please visit the original blog Time with A & N.

The book, Moms, Monsters, Media & Margaritas, examines the perceptions and expectations of motherhood in our 21st Century Digital World. It's full of humor and inspiration about motherhood, much as my personal blog Time with A & N is. The PACI Fund Project is the organization I'm creating with the release of the book to raise awareness and funds for childhood illnesses and diseases.

This project has become about making my goals a reality. One of those goals has been to always publish my own book and now thanks to the changing publishing industry and social media marketing, I am not only able to make that goal a reality, but I am able to do it as my own boss. The only people I plan to work for here are my readers.  Even though this book allows me to do something else I've always wanted to do, making charitable donations and giving back, my vision for this from the beginning was that this would also be a great way to "work" for my readers. There are too many charities to just choose one, and I'm sure it would be impossible to narrow that down by asking for my readers' vote so I've decided to sponsor and raise awareness and donate 20% of all book sales (which is about 50% of the profits) to a different charity based on reader input every 30-60 days.

I really hope to see this as something my readers feel they can be a part of. Not only do I hope you purchase the book and share it online and with others personally, but I hope you'll connect with me about how else you can get involved, whether it's through a charity you care deeply about or wanting to add your own small business as a PACI partner on a month by month basis. As a PACI partner you would agree that a certain percentage (you pick how much) of your sales for a certain designated time will  go to the designated charity, and during that time you would be advertised on the website and PACI social media networks (I do not collect the money from you; I just trust that you give what you say you will give) After a few months a page will also be created that list with links all charities, business partners, and funds raised from the beginning of this project to the current time.

Feel free to contact me anytime at glennbabies@gmail.com.  If you have not purchased the book yet be sure to purchase the print copy here on Lulu for $10.00 or get the ebook on Amazon or Barnes and Noble for $4.99 or less.