A.J. here.

Matt asked me to give you an update on this weekend’s events.

Thank you, thank you, thank you.

The Gala last night was a huge success!

Thanks to everyone who came to the event and donated to help families in need.

Thanks to everyone who donated merchandise or services for the auction.

Thanks to all of the volunteers who worked tirelessly over the past weeks and months to ensure that it would be a success.

We couldn’t have done this without everyone, and so we thank you!

If you didn’t get a chance to come to the Gala last night, you still have a chance to bid on some awesome items. We have an eBay site set up, with an auction running through this week. All proceeds go to benefit the foundation.

In addition, there is a story about Matt and Maddy on the front page of the Star Tribune today, A Father Alone Spreads Help to Others Like Him

Matt and Maddy Logelin were in the Twin Cities this weekend for two events to support a foundation Matt established earlier this year in memory of his wife. The nonprofit “Liz Logelin Foundation — for the love of Liz” offers financial support to men and women whose partners have died and left them with dependent children.

“I could have easily sat back and said poor me, poor me, please continue to send me clothes, send me gifts for my daughter,” he said on Sunday as Maddy played at his in-law’s house in Minnetonka. “But that’s not the case. I know there are other people way worse off than me. I see that as a big responsibility.”

The second annual 5K walk at Lake Calhoun on Saturday drew 300 people and raised more than $9,000. A gala Sunday night at the Calhoun Beach Club with a silent, live and Internet auction was expected to raise even more. An original painting by Maddy had a high bid on eBay of $400 as of Sunday afternoon.

Help us spread the word about The Liz Logelin Foundation! Send the article and the foundation website to your friends and family.

A.J. here.

Matt and Rachel have been all over the local media for the past few days to promote The Liz Logelin Foundation and our 5K and Gala events

Rachel was on WCCO yesterday to talk a little about the foundation and our upcoming events. Check it out!

Matt was interviewed on Twin Cities Live this afternoon. He talks a bit about his blog, the foundation, and there is a special appearance by Maddy!

Here’s the video:

Matt was also on Kare11’s EXTRA segment, first airing yesterday. From their site:

Over the last 18 months Matt’s blog has become, literally, famous. More than a million people hang on his every word. A book is now in the works.

The life he leads with Maddy has become so inspiring a foundation was formed to help people just like them.

The Liz Logelin Foundation works to grant money to men and women who lose their partner to death, and are left to parent alone.

The video segment up on their website, and it airs again this evening at 6:30pm.

Finally,

We just got some news from Becky about the fund-raising totals for the 5K.

You raised over $9,000 for the foundation today.

We are overwhelmed by your hard work and generosity.

Thank you.

we’re working on a few changes around here on the blog. please excuse the mess as we get a few things back into place. matt and i are pretty excited about it, and we hope you like it!

update: the changes are mostly complete. we have a few more things to get back into place, but I think you’ll find this new layout a bit easier on the eyes and easier to navigate.

matt is going to fill in some additional info about a special project…

(Sep. 19, Update, I made some fixes so that the site displays properly on Blackberries…)

the site is getting hammered pretty good right now, so i’m trying to slim us down a bit.

please be patient as the pages load… (moving to a new host soon… tonight?)

and welcome again.

The Liz Logelin Foundation

The Liz Logelin Foundation was established to assist families who find themselves in the heartbreaking, catastrophic situation of having lost a spouse, life-partner, and parent. The Foundation’s goal is to financially assist these families as they deal with the loss of their loved ones, and struggle to move forward. The Foundation was established in 2009 by Matthew Logelin, who lost his wife Elizabeth in 2008.

I hope you’ll come over and take a look.

update – 2:03am hope you’re liking the new design. to our bleary eyes it looks a bit more professional 2009, and hopefully will provide a bit easier navigation, too. matt promises an update soon, but says he first needs sleep.

we are both neglecting rule number one… sleep when your baby sleeps.

political robots? well, it seems things have gotten a little out of hand with the republican and obama t-shirts. (i know, i know, i started it by creating them in the first place! ) no, i don’t think that all republicans are evil… nor do i think that obama supporters are mindless automatons. those t-shirts were really meant to be a joke, an inside joke amongst god knows how many people read this site, but an inside joke nonetheless.

i think the more important thing here is the idea that we’re all in this together. i think the fact that thousands of strangers have come together to support matt and madeline in different ways, organizing donations, creating memorials, and even buying t-shirts, shows that in the end, we all realize that we can’t do this on our own. we need each other. in the end, we want to help each other out when things get bad.

so, the last of the t-shirts in the “political” category have been created. we’re in this together. is this political? i’m not sure. if our government is a reflection of ourselves, then maybe so. i suppose this worldview might lead you to one political party more than the other… so be it. but the truth is that we can’t do this alone, and I’m very thankful that all of you have supported matt in your different ways, because none of the people who are supporting him could have done it alone and i know i can’t help matt and madeline alone.

anyway, more designs are up for the LGLM5k, and since a lot of have asked about the proceeds from the t-shirts… the proceeds from the shirts go on to support matt and madeline. and in addition, matt is also working on a few other venues for how he’ll pay this all forward to other people in need. i’m not at liberty to say more than that

most of the shirts should allow choice of shirt color, and if there are designs that you are looking for, please let me know in the comments.

first of all, this could not have happened without the nice people at spreadshirt: Jana, Holly, Jesse, and everyone else that helped us get this up and running, thank you, thank you.

so, without further ado…

Welcome to the Garden of Awesome

(for the obama fans out there… check out page two)

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update – just finished with Back to School night, I’ll be adding a few more iterations of the shirts — kids, toddlers and a couple womens and mens that i forgot to copy…

update update — it was spreadshirt that did the nice design over at the shop, so thanks go to them. also, i forgot to mention that this is aj posting here… you’ll know it’s me in the the future because I tend to put one or two sentences together in each paragraph.

as opposed to matt.

anyway, send some comments if i missed any more iterations on the shirts… also, check the back of the <strike>stranger</strike> t-shirt

matt asked me to find a new theme… something minimalist.

we’ll be working on it a bit here tonight, so go easy on me.