I stopped by Dr. Waldrop's office today to thank him for making the first donation towards my team in training goal. Dr. Waldrop is a forestry professor who I hardly know. I worked on a project for him and presented the results at a conference in November. Before that I had met him a handful of times and he still could never put my name and face together. Today was the first day I've seen him since November. I just happened to walk by his office and notice he was there so I popped in to say thank you.
What transpired is a true testament to the genuine caring that you don't see very often. Dr. Waldrop told me he received a letter from someone else and he happily donated money because his wife had recently lost a friend to leukemia. Blood cancers affected his family as well. So after donating to this person he couldn't help but wonder if he knew of anyone else participating. It took him a while to navigate the website. Imagine how tough searching for someone is when you are not even sure who you are searching for. Then he smiled at me, and said "I came across your name and I knew there was no one else with that name." Isn't that the truth. FINALLY, all the years of having to spell my name out has paid off! I find it no coincidence at all that some inner feeling inside brought him to my site. It's a sweet warm feeling to know that I received my first donation from someone who went searching, not knowing what they would find, but ready to be generous and freely give to someone they hardly know.