Making Moves with Kelsey Fry | Shepherd's Little Sheep

Come support families in local children's hospitals this year at the Shepherd's Little Sheep fundraiser. The event is from 10am-2pm at Strike and Barrel's amazing NEWLY renovated space and help us raise some money so we can bless HUNDREDS of new families.

This year we will offer a totally different experience than we did last year while still including LIVE music, food, drinks, duck pin bowling, new incredible yard games on the turf, an amazing renovated arcade, raffle prizes, and a silent auction. You will get to hear the amazing testimonies of what Shepherd's Little Sheep was able to do in 2022 because of YOUR generosity during last years event!

Purchase tickets or items for the Blessing Bags: Shepherd's Little Sheep

If you aren't able to make it - that's ok! You can still help spread the word or make a donation!

We can't wait to see how many lives we're able to bless in 2023!

ADULT WRISTBANDS INCLUDE:

-2 DRINK TICKETS (YES, alcohol is included!)

-Both, BRUNCH + LUNCH OPTIONS!

-Duck pin bowling, lawn games, LIVE music, entertainment!

KIDS UNDER 12 ARE FREE WITH ADULT WRISTBAND PURCHASE, PLEASE CLAIM HOW MANY KIDS WRISTBANDS YOU WILL NEED.

SILENT SPONSORS:

This is available for anyone, you will receive a t-shirt and hand written thank you card from us, we are so grateful for every penny donated and Shepherd's Little Sheep wouldn't be possible without YOU.

The Rachel Kendall Team is proud to be a sponsor of this wonderful event, and hope you will come out and join us this weekend! 

Reach out to The Rachel Kendall Team:

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• Phone: 919.782.4505

Transcript

Mahala Landin: 0:01

Hey Triangle lovers. Welcome to Making Moves hosted by The Rachel Kendall team, where we will explore together the top restaurants, community hotspots and events in our area. Let's make some moves. Hey, everyone, it's Mahala landin with Making Moves and I have got a very special guest. I have Kelsey Fry, who is going to be with us today to share everything there is to know about Shepherd's Little Sheep. So, I'm gonna let you take it away. Tell us all about what the mission what the purpose what the drive is. And then we'll get to the to the main topic, which is what's happening this weekend.

Kelsey Fry: 0:41

Yeah, so we Hi, good morning. First of all, we have three kids. My name is Kelsey Fry. I have like a small, local following in Raleigh. And now I get to hang with Rachel Kendall. And it's so fun!

Mahala Landin: 0:58

We're excited to have you! That's for another

Kelsey Fry: 1:00

I know, I know. But we started last year, we've got topic. three kids and two of our boys, they like to give me a run for my money. And we have spent a lot of time in the hospital. And they're doing great and they're healthy, and they're amazing. But in that process, we kind of recognized that there are a lot of things out there for sick kids as there should be. But there's not a ton of resources for parents of sick kids. And you know, over the last 18 months, we just kind of realized that there's a need for it. And we wanted to do something. And we had some experience in the area. And we thought that, you know, we could do something that would give back to the parents that have kids and the Children's Hospital. So last year, we reached out to you guys, and we had six founding sponsors, and we just thought we would have a fundraiser to raise some money to give back to our hospitals. And in Raleigh, we're lucky to have like three amazing children's hospitals. And so, last year, we were like, Let's just put together a party for his first birthday for the littlest ones first birthday. And the littlest one, his name is Shepherd, he will eventually need a liver transplant. But right now he's doing amazing. And it kind of just gave us like a foot in the door to the hospitals to get like social worker's contacts and ask them, you know, they send in this cares team every time you're admitted to the hospital, and they kind of asked like, what can we do for you? And I just kind of switched the narrative eventually. And I was like, what can I do for you guys, like we're in here for a bag of fluids, it's not that big of a deal. But the person next door to us, you know, they don't know what's happening with their kid, and we want to help them. And they said, you know, parents have to pay for parking when they come here every day. They have to pay for food to be delivered if they're not admitted to the hospital. So the parent has to have their own meal, three meals a day. They have to you know, you want coffee and the coffee in the hospital...it sucks. Hospital. I know that. Yeah. So we just kind of, they told us all of these little things that they could benefit from, and we decided to start making blessing bags that are valued at $150 or a little more. And they just have like all the basic necessities that a parent might need. So Visa gift cards, they can pay medical bills with, DoorDash gift cards- they can order a meal for themselves decent coffee, right, just like the small things that you know, when you take for granted. Oh, yeah, for sure. Yeah. And they just bring like a little glimpse of hope and a little glimpse of joy. And that's all we can hope to do. Right. So we started the first event was last year, and you guys were part of it. And it was amazing!

Mahala Landin: 3:43

It was amazing! So much fun.

Kelsey Fry: 3:45

Oh, it was so fun.

Mahala Landin: 3:46

Energy was great. And seeing everybody that has been a part of your story and a part of your experience of creating this project. And this philanthropy effort was really special. And then you tied it together with a great birthday party, which obviously yeah, the kids love to so I think everybody got to play a part and seeing all the children running around with their tickets and selling tickets. And it was like a family affair of making things happen, which was so special.

Kelsey Fry: 4:14

Yeah, we were used to having lots of kids in our life, obviously. But we wanted to make it like an event that it was family friendly, but also a really good time for adults. Just so they could kind of understand like, you're you're helping us give back to people in your situation. Like if your kid was sick. Let's, that's that's what we're doing here. Yeah. So last year was kind of trial and error. We just kind of did something to see what would happen. And it worked. And so last year we raised to $12,000. This year, we have an event this Saturday from 10am to 2pm. It's at Strike and Barrel in downtown Wake Forest, which is really awesome. Because last year, they had that space but this year they've expanded like 20,000 square feet, so it's gonna be insane and we're their grand opening party, which is really exciting.

Mahala Landin: 4:58

And if you've never been to strike barrel that is that establishment and the people that run it are so accommodating, and they're so great. We've done team events there, I've done my daughter's birthday party, they're so fun, they will make it, they will make it everything that you want it to be. Yeah,

Kelsey Fry: 5:13

They're in there, like they want to give back. So they're, you know, they keep our costs really low. And we're just grateful to support them. But I think it's gonna be really, really great this year. So last year, we had six sponsors, The Rachel KendallTteam was one of them. This year, we have 26, which is insane. It doesn't even feel real. But like the amount of people we're going to be able to bless over the next 12 months because of our sponsors, it blows my mind thinking about it just makes me crazy.

Mahala Landin: 5:42

You mentioned Wake Med and yearly Wake Med has one of the largest or is the Children's Hospital for our Triangle. Have you started working with other hospitals? Or do you just focus on Wake Med?

Kelsey Fry: 5:53

Yes, we actually just got into Duke last month, which is really, really exciting. Because we go to Duke all the time. So we wanted to get in there, that was one of our missions, it was a little tougher. We actually do have Wake Med is coming on Saturday to the event to give an impact speech just to tell them like tell our event, what we were able to do over the last 18 months, which will be really huge. But Duke is also coming to the event, which is thrilling. And then we this year, we managed to get Donate Life. So they will come and set up a table. And they will be making sure that people are organ donors. And if they're not, they'll check to make sure that you are usually you can only do that the DMV. So having DonateLife at the event to be able to do that is really, really awesome. But I think it's going to be like, it's going to be really, really fun. And if you're local to Raleigh, or Durham, or Cary or Wake Forest, or wherever you are. It's an event that I can't really explain when you get there, you leave and you feel good. And I think that's rare these days. And I think a fun part of that is like a lot of these people know us from the internet. They don't know us in real life. And we kind of get to, it's like when everybody gets there. It's like one big group that like has a mutual connection at Yeah, and it's really special. But, yeah, we're really excited. And we're so grateful for virtual kennel team to be a part of it.

Mahala Landin: 7:20

And we are very happy to be a part of it. When you guys are delivering the blessing bag. Yeah, who's doing that? How does that happen? I think you know, that's one of those things. When I when I hear the story, I'm like, Okay, this was a really small idea. That very quickly became a very large idea. And you're one person you do a lot of things. Yeah, hella kids, you know, all that. And so, how do you make that happen? How do you get them out to the families that need them?

Kelsey Fry: 7:45

I feel like I collect really amazing people in my life. And I'm grateful for those humans. So my brother in law and my sister in law are actually the ones that came up with the idea to start shepherds, little sheep, we were sitting in the hospital one day, and my brother in law texted us in a group chat. And I was like, it'd be really cool if we could give back to people that are in the hospital. And we had this idea, and they talked to their Bible study about it and put it together, and they were like, we're gonna do it, we're gonna make blessing bags, we're gonna connect with a social worker, and we're gonna start small, maybe 15 bags. And that transpired so quickly and to, you know, hundreds and hundreds of bags. So we do have teams of people that will donate time to stuff the bags. And then typically, because of COVID, my brother in law has been dropping off boxes at a time to the social workers at Wake Med. Duke is going to be an interesting situation, because they have so many floors in their children's hospital that we're going to be able to pick which floor starts first and see what else they need from us. But one thing that we have tried to do in the next year is just having the ability to have a social worker call us and say, you know, a parent has been in a car accident and their car seat, it doesn't work anymore, they need a new car seat. And that's a $300 expense that most people can't afford. So ideally, in the next year, on top of blessing bags will be able to bless individual lives. So whether it be that

Mahala Landin: 9:11

specific needs of what families are going through, right. And I think that's important because so many times we want to give back and we want we think it has to be a monetary contribution, but it can absolutely be a time contribution to help organizations like this. Again, I go back to like being a mom, it's one of those things you want your children to be a part of you want them to actually see what is happening behind the scenes, you know, because it it touches so many families. Kids are so much more aware, you know, I know my daughter's go to school with you know, a little girl that they like she has an autoimmune disease and she doesn't have hair and she you know, like they're so in tune with what's happening. Yeah. You know, their classmates and things. And so they start to think about well, what does that feel like? Yeah, like do they have to go to the hospital? Do they have regular visits? Is it more, you know, impactful to them than it is to me? So I think it's really a great educational service to do children to bring them to events like this. And to let them see, like, it doesn't have to be money. It can be time it can be participation, it can be so many different things to give back. Yeah, we,

Kelsey Fry: 10:20

This year, we actually added a table where kids can make, like handmade cards for these people, and we'll put them in the bags. And you know, that's a that's, that's little, that's fun. And

Mahala Landin: 10:31

it's fun for them. They know, they're gonna give it to somebody. I think that's awesome.

Kelsey Fry: 10:37

Yeah, it's been, it's been really, really fun. Even our fliers, like, we have pictures of Shepherd sitting in a hospital bed. And you know, he's got cords all over. And when kids see those flyers, they ask questions, and kids don't hold back. Like they want to know like, why does that baby have stuff on him? Is he sick? Does he has a scar on his stomach? And those are opportunities where we could get, you know, we could tell the kid to? You know, you don't ask questions like that. But no, we want to tell them we want to talk about.

Mahala Landin: 11:03

Conversation screen for them to lead with curiosity, and also that curiosity can lead to how they want to, you know, be involved in it. Yeah, for sure. So what happens if we can't go to this amazing event this Saturday?

Kelsey Fry: 11:17

That's a great question. So there are so many opportunities to help support us. And I know that this is a big, like conversation for people that aren't local as well. Obviously, you can come to the event on Saturday, if you can't come to the event we have. It's called bonfire and you can order T shirts that support they say, good things are happening. Yeah, good things are coming. And they've got all of our sponsors on them. So you can order a t shirt, a sweatshirt, gloves, a long sleeved one. Yeah, they're, they're so great. So that's another way to help. We have an Amazon wishlist. So if you want to donate just like items that we put in our bags, phone chargers, insulated cups, those kinds of things, they're all listed on our Instagram, which is at Shepherds Little Sheep. So, if you click the link in that bio, it'll take you to all of the all of the things that we have to offer. We've got like playlists of music, if you need encouragement, we've got all kinds of things on there. And then honestly, just sharing the events, like if you screenshot one of our flyers and posted on your Instagram story, we could we could not be any more thrilled.

Mahala Landin: 12:22

And now you have the Instagram handle for Shepherds Little Sheep. So that's a place to find information. You've got a website?

Kelsey Fry: 12:30

We do have a website ShepherdsLittleSheep.com. Awesome. It's it's the I would click the link before I would tell you to go there. We're new and we're figuring out all the bumps and we are a nonprofit takes a while to be approved. And we are officially official this year. So that's thrilling. Yeah. But it's been it's been a really fun journey.

Mahala Landin: 12:51

Well, and I think that's why this was so important to talk about the event before the event, because you know, it was new last year. Super New. Yeah, you guys still know it's still very new. And so many times we worry about like, what is what are we contributing to? And is this real? And this is so real, because it's so hands on? Yeah. And it is growing, and it's getting legs in the community, which is awesome. Yeah.

Kelsey Fry: 13:13

And we actually like I don't know if this is helpful information. But you know, when we talk about what we get to do, a lot of people come out of the woodworks and they say, you know, we spent so much time in the NICU and we were in the hospital, and it's not always negative situations, but they're still taxing on parents. And so we're we're able to give a little joy, and that's that's really the main mission.

Mahala Landin: 13:35

And it's totally in alignment with the mission that we have. Yeah, which is helping families create homes and homes are everywhere, right homes or hospitals homes or the Ronald McDonald House homes are, you know, the four walls that we come home to every day, so Well, thank you so much for sharing a little bit of our having me a little amazing what's happening this weekend. It's a great event. Yeah, come see Kelsey, come see the family.

Kelsey Fry: 13:59

I know if you're nervous to come, don't be, it is one big party. You'll get a hug as soon as you get there.

Mahala Landin: 14:04

Absolutely. And we will come back and explore all things Raleigh on Making Moves NEXT TIME with you.

Kelsey Fry: 14:10

So fun, love that.

Mahala Landin: 14:14

Thank you for joining us on this episode of Making Moves. We want to deliver the highlights of the Triangle that you want to hear. Let us know your feedback, comment on our social media, like and of course subscribe to continue and discover why we love where we live. Until next time with Making Moves hosted by The Rachel Kendall Team.