My Independence Day

Today I am remembering my dear friend Janeen. She was a devoted mother to her son Ty, a loyal friend, a fierce dog Mom, an excellent cake baker and decorator, and had one of the most amazing hearts of anyone I've ever met.

Sadly, she passed away just under a year ago. Even though she had such a wonderful heart, her own gave her troubles. I'm reminded of her today because she always had a time with people setting off fireworks all night long and it scared her dog Brently and she would often be up all night and making comments on Facebook. We had a running joke of tagging each other in chain mail like posts about luck.

Janeen was one of the most devoted friends I have ever met. After another of my dear friends passed, she worked tirelessly and vorciferously to put together a fundraiser for a project that was near and dear to his heart.

My friend Kevin was a very passionate and generous chef and I had the honor of working alongside him for twelve years. His desire was to start a teen cooking class to engage and inform young adults if they showed an interest his profession. He was well on his way with the planning stages before his passing, but this story is about Janeen so I will come back to you with Kevin's story in another post.

Janeen was a true blessing and through her and a couple others networking and calling on our awesome community and nearby friends and businesses, Teen Cuisine was born. The first fundraiser was held a mere two months after Kevin's passing and with Janeen's phenomenal efforts and the support of our local family and friends we managed to raise over $13,000 to kick start this amazing project. I'll save the details of the fundraiser for another post about Kevin because that larger than life character deserves his own definitely.

Today I send out a toast and good vibes to my friend Janeen. I hope you're looking down on us and smiling and I hope Brently is happy with his new family and the fireworks aren't bothering him this Fourth of July 🥂