As you already know, I’m a volunteer for The Magic Hour Foundation, which provides professional photography services for cancer warriors and their families. Doing this has been such an unexpected blessing to me.  I truly feel that I’ve found a real purpose for my photography in addition to doing it for fun and profit. Maybe one person CAN make a difference to somebody dealing with cancer, even if it’s just for a few minutes or hours.

Here in Cincinnati, we have another amazing organization called The Dragonfly Foundation, which provides support and assistance, gifting programs, and special events and fun outings for kids and young adults with cancer and blood-borne illnesses. I was thinking that Magic Hour might be a good fit for Dragonfly, so I put both organization founders in touch with each other (dontcha love the internet?!)  and to make a long story short, now I’m a Dragonfly volunteer and staff photographer too!  Seriously, I couldn’t be happier to be working with two such amazing organizations.

My first volunteer gig with Dragonfly was for the Cincinnati Reds Opening Day Parade – what a great way to start!  In all my years in Cincinnati, I had never been to Opening Day and never been to the parade. For those of you who aren’t in Cincinnati – it’s like a huge local holiday full of celebration and fun. I got to ride on the Dragonfly firetruck (awesome – as I had never been on a fire truck either!) with some just amazing kids and their teriffic families. It was one of the best days of my life, I swear. On one hand I went from thinking “this is SO MUCH FUN” to tears hearing about what it’s like to have a child diagnosed with cancer and to go through treatment with a little one. There but by the grace of God…. Joy and tears, joy and tears – that was my day. It was incredible.

But enough about me, I’d rather the photos tell the story.

Who doesn’t love the Budweiser Clydesdales, right?

Props to my new friend Hal at Dodd Camera in Kenwood who was very supportive and generous with the rental of the stupendous Canon fisheye lens that I have been coveting for a while.