Hello Szott Foundation Friends,

We are so excited, as we are getting ready to mail out our first annual appeal letter. Our data base is in need of some “spring cleaning,” so we are taking care of that before the letters go out. Please be looking for our letter in the near future.

Once again, the Abby Invite held in mid December, was a lot of fun and financially successful. Sixty-eight hundred dollars were raised! This was the first year that all the high schools in District 196 pooled their resources to hold one of the most prestigious meets in the state of MN. This comes as a welcomed change for the Eastview High School gymnasts, parents, and coaches, as they have hosted it alone since 2004. In the coming years the meet will be organized by District196 high schools on a rotating basis. We want to thank all the parents, coaches, students, and other volunteers that help to make this annual event a success, and we look forward to next year’s meet at Rosemount High School.

We want to remind all of you that the Andrew and Abby Szott Foundation continues to prosper. We have a dynamic board of people with an abundance of energy, creativity, and business knowledge. Since we made the decision during the summer of 2010 to scale back our large fundraising efforts until my retirement from teaching in 2014, we will continue to give at least one Gift of Time each year. With your help from our first annual appeal, that number will likely rise.

On behalf of the Szott Foundation board of directors, we wish you well, and we thank you in advance for your continued support that allows one parent to stay home from work full-time to meet the emotional, physical, and medical needs of a child with life threatening cancer. There is no more important Gift than this.

Blessings!

Kathryn

Janet Malz

We have been doing a tremendous amount of “behind the scenes” work with the intention of creating more Andrew and Abby Szott Foundation exposure. I hope we have succeeded and I look forward to your feedback.

First, we wish to welcome 14 year-old Jenna Johnston, her mom, and her twin sister as our newest Gift of Time recipient. Jenna was diagnosed in August 2008 with a rare form of childhood cancer called rabdomyosarcoma. We awarded her family a $10,400 Gift of Time at our February board meeting.

I had the pleasure of speaking with Jenna’s mother this afternoon. She reported that God has healed Jenna, as her last two scans have not revealed any disease. Jenna still has a long haul ahead of her; her treatments are alternating five days and three days every two weeks. Her chemo runs over a 24-hour period, so she is required to stay in the hospital during the course of these days. She has just completed her first 5-week radiation treatment and suffered some pretty severe burning because of it. She has another 5-week treatment that she will begin in a couple of months. I assured Jenna’s mom that the Szott Foundation family would pray for the following things:
•    Finances
•    Continued health and healing
•    Relief from the feeling of isolation
•    Jenna’s sister
Will you please join me in bombarding Heaven with these petitions? They will be heard!

Second, we have FINISHED our new promotional video, and it is quiet compelling. My brother, John Laurence, and KARE 11 photographer, Ron Stover, put many, many hours into its creation, and the Szott Foundation is grateful beyond measure for this added communication tool. It will help bring the Foundation to a new level, as its design is for exposure and fundraising. Thank you so much John and Ron! Please look for the link to view it on our website. It will also soon be available on YouTube and Network for Good. We are very excited.

Next, all of the communication tools that the University of Minnesota Carlson School of Management students created are complete. Kelsey Webster, board member and student has completed our first Annual Report. The report is a tool for the Foundation to communicate its work to external stakeholders and includes:
•    Budget information and year-to-date finances.
•    Events from the past year.
•    Biographies of Gift of Time recipients and Board of Directors.
•    Recognition of volunteers, donors and corporate sponsors.
Please be looking for an electronic copy of the Annual Report, and we hope you enjoy reading it.

As many of you know already, we have a new look to our website. Sawan Patel is responsible for this new development. He upgraded the current website to be more user-friendly to potential donors, volunteers, and families so they can find information that is relevant to them, even if they are not currently familiar with the Foundation. The website allows all Board members to update the site easily and with improved efficiency, using familiar Microsoft Office applications. It provides the Foundation with a user manual to describe how to manage and edit the new site. The website also allows visitors to subscribe to my blog and other frequently updated content. These things were done largely to improve the navigation, organization and design layout, while making minimal changes to content. The new website will help market the Szott Foundation nationwide and encourage participation of visitors, even those who are just becoming familiar with the Foundation. Further, the site’s improved organization promotes online donations by making the “donate now” button more visible.

We also have a new brochure that is beautiful and was designed by Liz Pellen. She changed the design elements of the brochure and added a section about its vision to become a nationwide organization. She also added content to make the current brochure effective for both an applicant audience, as well as a potential donor audience. It will help us realize our goal for people to know exactly what the Andrew and Abby Szott Foundation is all about after only glancing at the brochure.

A PowerPoint template is another development that was created by Bryan Olson. It will be used for all formal presentations that the Szott Foundation makes and includes elements of the branding guidelines including layouts, visuals, fonts, and colors. There are different slide layouts designated for a presentation’s introduction, agenda, content, contact information, and Q & A slides. The deck also includes three standard content slides for use in presentations, including “About the Foundation,” “Application Process,” and “Andrew and Abby’s Story.” The template will make it much easier for the Foundation to use and easy for the audience to recognize and follow.

Finally, the U of M students designed new business cards, a newsletter template, and letterhead, all to make the look of the Foundation consistent throughout its communication tools.

On behalf of the Board of Directors we wish to thank these very talented, creative, hard-working, and passionate people for being so very committed to the cause of the Foundation:
•    John Laurence
•    Ron Stover
•    Kelsey Webster
•    Sawan Patel
•    Liz Pellen
•    Brian Olson
You have helped to move mountains in the growth of the Andrew and Abby Szott Foundation.

Blessings to all of you. Please let us know what you think.

Fondly,

Kathryn Szott
Co-Founder and President
Andrew and Abby Szott Foundation

We have been blessed again and again with the energy, creativity, generosity, brilliance, prayers, and enthusiasm of so many. The good thing about this is that the numbers keep growing. We have enjoyed tremendous growth over the past two years because of you. Thank you for making it possible!

First Gift of Time Grant for the Plemel Family

We awarded our first ever Gift of Time grant in the amount of $25,000 during our third annual Abby Invite gymnastics meet in December 2007. We were blessed that Larry and Debbie Plemel and their lovely daughter Brooke were able to attend and receive the Gift in person. The Foundation was so honored to be able to give the Gift of Time to allow Debbie to stay home full-time to care for Brooke.

Another highlight of our first year as a Foundation was our first annual golf Tournament for Time held at Cannon Falls Golf Cub. The event was so much fun and was wildly successful!

Television Publicity

We also received much publicity in 2007. Joe Fryer from KARE 11 did an Extra segment on the 6:00 news. He captured the focus of the Foundation and highlighted the presentation of our first gift to the Plemels. After it aired, we were overwhelmed with generous donations and letters from well-wishers who were moved by the segment. KARE 11’s Eric Perkins did a “Perk at Play” segment promoting the Szott Foundation at one of Eastview High School’s gymnastics practices prior to the Abby Invite. Thank you to KARE 11! We look forward to a continued relationship with them in the future.

Successful Fundraising Events

We headed into 2008 with much enthusiasm and motivation for further success and we were not disappointed. We were able to award five families with the Gift of Time in grant amounts ranging from $9,000 to $25,000.

Annual events in 2008 played a big roll in our fundraising efforts. The second annual Tournament for Time golf outing, now our signature event, was held on August 16 and was once again very successful and fun.

A second major annual event is our beloved Abby Invite gymnastics meet. This event is very near and dear to our hearts because of Abby’s love for the sport. Also, the event is run entirely by the Eastview High School gymnastics team and booster club. Their continued support means so much to our organization.

Emmy Garner, one of Abby’s friends, organized the second annual Sand Volleyball Benefit. She is just one of the many young people who have supported the Foundation through creative fundraisers.

Leadership Changes

We’ve begun to realize that one of our greatest assets is the young people, like Emmy, who are steadfastly committed to the Szott Foundation. Most of them are Abby’s friends and peers, but some are young people who just want desperately to get involved in a cause that can make a noticeable difference in the lives of other people. They have shown their support and passion in numerous ways, particularly in the area of fun, creative fundraisers, such as Dream Date for Hope, Dodgefest, and Homerun for Hope. We are so excited about their enthusiasm, because they are the future of the Szott Foundation.

The Szott Foundation leadership is also growing and changing. In the fall, we added two strong, bright women to our Board of Directors. Kelsey Webster came on board in September, and Shelly Collins-Rucks joined us in October. We are excited about what these women will bring to the Board.

Our Board said good-bye to Tammie Dahlheimer, oncology nurse practitioner at the University of Minnesota Children’s Hospital, as her two-year term as a member of the Board of Directors came to a close in December 2008. Tammie will stay on, however, in an advisory role as our medical liaison. She will also serve as a link between the Foundation and social workers in area hospitals to help facilitate the application process. We are grateful to her for her service and dedication as a Board member, and we look forward to working with her in other capacities in the future. She has such a heart for the Szott Foundation and the families we impact. Thank you, Tammie for everything you have done for us!

Also, thank you to all of you who have shown such great support for our Foundation this year. None of our successes would be possible without your support. Please find information about what we’ve accomplished in 2008 in this document. We look forward to future successes in 2009!

Best,

Kathryn Szott
Co-Founder and President
Andrew and Abby Szott Foundation