Mompreneur

It's 4 The Kids!

Mom blogger fundraises for cancer families

-Stephanie Elliot

Michelle Kemper Brownlow is a popular mommy blogger whose daily posts about an everyday mom trying to keep her sanity have readers laughing out loud. Many friendships have bloomed through their all-too common lives and simple threads of laughter.

But the laughter stopped last December when a dear friend and fellow mommy blogger shared devastating news. Mimi Avery's son, Julian, then four, had not long to live. Julian had been diagnosed the previous March with Medulloblastoma, a brain tumor. Despite surgery, radiation and chemotherapy, the cancer had returned. The doctors had done all they could and sent Julian home to be with his family.

Along with other bloggers, Kemper Brownlow began to share Julian's story, and her readership grew by leaps and bounds. Readers were touched beyond belief. People donated money, held prayer vigils, and one reader even declared an International Hug Juju Day! "The outpouring was unbelievable. Readers were humbled by acts you don't see on your daily news," Kemper Brownlow recalls.

On January 19, 2008, these words, written by Julian's mother, hit the blogging world hard: "Time of death, 11:22 am."

With a broken heart, Kemper Brownlow struggled getting back into her humor writing. "It was too hard to be funny when I knew Mimi was grieving," she recalls. But a week later, and at Mimi's request, she had her fans laughing once again. "Something had changed inside me because of Julian. I felt a calling to help, to reach out to other families. However, each time I did, my readership declined. People left comments saying they just couldn't take anymore sadness; they needed a break."

That's when her foundation, it's 4 the kids!, was born. "I needed to reach people who wouldn't look away!" she says. While Kemper Brownlow continued to keep her crowds laughing at My Semblance of Sanity, she set up a new website that would fundraise for other cancer families. Soon, numerous artists offered their wares for sale, with the majority of their profits going to families struggling through treatments and the unthinkable. read more...