Project Jason announced a new fundraiser that kicked off on the nonprofit’s sixth anniversary October 6, 2009. “No Family Left Behind” asks the public to help fund the next Project Jason Keys to Healing Retreat, to be held in August 2010. The first retreat was such a miracle, we want to repeat it, but we want to make it free for all attendees. Be sure to watch the video to see what your donation can do for twice as many families in 2010.
No Family Left Behind
The Keys to Healing may be in your hands.
Yes, you.
Why, you ask?
Imagine one of the people you love most disappears. There is no goodbye, no letter or last phone call. There is only silence and an empty place in your heart that can’t be filled by anything or anyone but that person.
There are fear, guilt, anxiety, loneliness, and frustration as you spend every waking minute on the search. You’ve registered your missing loved on every website you can find and sought the advice of several trained nonprofits. You’ve worked with your law enforcement to do everything in your power to bring him/her home. Searches have taken place and media came to your aid. There is nothing left to do right now but wait and hope for the lead to come in that will resolve this awful situation.
Help may come for the search, but there is little help for your emotional needs. No counselor in your area has experience with this situation. There are no local support groups for families of the missing, and you feel alienated in victims’ or grief groups, they have answers. You don’t.
Then you hear about the Keys to Healing retreat where you can learn why you feel as you do and how to best live in your new reality. At this place, you’ll meet people just like you, people who understand how you feel. This is what you need in order to go on because you’re at the end of your rope and no one is listening.
Your heart leaps at the thought of the relief the retreat has brought to others Then you look at your bank account balance and pile of bills on the table. You spent your savings on a reward fund, billboards, posters and private investigators. You paid his/her bills, never predicting this would go on so long. You may, as many, have taken a second job to compensate for the loss of their paycheck. You also have no vacation pay left, and those bills keep piling up.
Suddenly, you are overwhelmed with the weight of it all. You need this retreat but without the money, you can’t go. The thought of yet another day like this brings you to your knees. The tears come, slowly at first, but then erupt into sobs. And no one hears you.
Families of the Missing Need Emotional Support
This isn’t just a sad story. this was reality for numerous families who wanted, no, needed to come to our 2009 retreat but could not afford it.
While some online support is available, there is no substitute for an in-person gathering like Project Jason’s Keys to Healing retreat. We have the very best and most knowledgeable counselor in the country explaining why attendees they feel as they do and detailing what they can do about it. For three days, families of the missing are enveloped in mental, physical, and spiritual health guidance, massage therapy, peaceful, quiet surroundings, and much more. They meet others who truly understand, and they forge bonds that will help them with support long after the retreat ends.
We asked you to imagine a life in their situation. We now ask you to find it in your heart to help us help them. We need your help to be able to bring as many families to the 2010 retreat as possible. You hold the Keys to Healing for these families in your hands.
Last year, 20 families came to the first Keys to Healing retreat. On the first day, Friday, the pain of their loss and the weight of the situation was clearly etched upon their faces. By the end of the second day, we witnessed the families bonding, and even heard laughter now and then. By the time they left Sunday, there were smiles on those same faces. They were transformed both inside and out. We wondered if we were imagining what we witnessed, but we weren’t.
See for yourself by watching this video. Observe the faces at the beginning and at the end.
http://video.yahoo.com/watch/5609428/14723375
What Attendees Have to Say
The families who attended the 2009 retreat will tell you in their own words how life was for them and how the retreat helped them know they can go on.
“On June 26, 2007 my entire life changed, my 26 year old son disappeared. This began a new chapter that altered the path of my life completely. Through the beginning days of darkness I struggled, and with the instruction from Law Enforcement that they have limited resources and that they would do all they could but that the family must do the rest ringing in my head.”
“Every aspect of the retreat had impact on me personally, and I took away from it tools that will help me over the coming months and years to not only cope, but to move forward with more strength, health and armed with knowledge that not only I can use, but that I can share with others to help in their walk.”
Christy Davis, Mother of missing Michael Austin Davis
You may read additional testimonials from the families we serve to your right and on the Great Nonprofits website at http://greatnonprofits.org/reviews/profile2/project-jason and at Project Jason’s forum at http://projectjason.org/forums/index.php?topic=6504.0.
Keys to Healing Fundraising Campaign
Help us ensure no family is left behind for the 2010 Keys to Healing retreat. Project Jason receives no grants or government funding. Everything we do is reliant on private donations. With your help, we can offer the retreat to families at a very low cost, with the ultimate goal of no charge at all.
The Keys to Healing Campaign begins October 6, 2009, the sixth anniversary of the founding of Project Jason. It will end December 31, 2009.
A key will be added to our retreat information and campaign update page every time another $250 (the per-person cost) is raised. Each key represents another family member of a missing person to whom you gave the Keys to Healing. http://www.projectjason.org/retreat.html
If you’d like your name displayed as a donor, let us know at the time of your donation. We will also email you a graphic that you can display on your website or in your email that shows you are supporting the 2010 Keys to Healing Retreat.
To participate, choose the PayPal or the Change.org buttons at the bottom of the “No Family Left Behind” page on the Project Jason website to make your donation. Any amount will help! You can also mail a check or money order to:
Project Jason
PO Box 3035
Omaha, NE 68103
I approached a CNN reporter about the possibility of doing a story about Jason Jolkowski and his parents, Kelly and Jim, the founders of Project Jason. The reporter said yes, and the story was not only published, it held a spot on the home page of CNN.com for a few hours that day! (The CNN story about The Garden for the Missing was also featured on the CNN home page, as some of you who follow this may recall.)
