SAVE THE DATE!  Thursday April 19th!  Come and eat at Chili's!  If you mention Bella Bowman Foundation for lunch, dinner, or takeout, 10 % of the proceeds go towards our foundation!  This will take place at the College Drive and the Millerville locations.  We will be out there for dinnertime selling t-shirts and passing out her story.  Also coming soon there will be a flyer you can print out and bring with you and you get free chips and salsa!  April 19th is Ependymoma Awareness Day.  This was the type of brain tumor Bella had.  Come and eat that day and support the foundation!

My nephews are wearing their t-shirts proud for Bella!  Love You!!

Here is part of our Bella Bowman Foundation Team!  Thanks for you hard work!  Especially you Millie!

Please come if you are dealing with childhood cancer or send this to someone you know who is.  We need a support group like this and we need a good turnout so we can continue to help families!

Do you have a child with cancer? Join Cancer Services for a night of peer-to-peer support. There will be fun activities for the kids and a light dinner will be served. Call Lindsay at 927.2273 or email lwilson@cancerservices.org to register.

Good days and Bad days

This week has had its ups and downs.  My plan for Bella's room is to make it into Bella Bowman Foundation headquarters.  So many auction items are coming in for the Ball and our wonderful friend Court Smith made me the most gorgeous desk for the foundation and I am running out of room.
So this week I had a very good friend and my mother help me clean out Bellas room.  Packing her clothes was the hardest thing but it needed to be done.  I would have many nights of sobbing and weakness in there holding all her beautiful dresses!  But now her room still has a lot of her still in there but more room for all the great things to come with our foundation!

So that was the down but the up was I have been asked to be on the board of the Cancer Services of Baton Rouge.  Also I went to a Sponsor dinner this week and I met the most heartfelt people who really want to help our community with families battling cancer.  So this is a hugh honor for me and I feel like this in all in Gods plan to make a difference.  I love getting reminders what my purpose is.  I hope you find your purpose!

Angola Prison

About a month ago I had a women call me and tell me she had become friends with a inmate at Angola / Louisiana State Penitentiary after she bought some of his artwork. She told me he saw a picture of Bella from her obituary and painted a picture of her, and he has asked her to try and get in touch with me so he could give the picture to us.  I was very taken back because my first thought was identity theft.  But then as I continued to talk to the women I felt like this could just be a nice jester?  I talked to Trey and after he investigated everything he arranged for us to meet in the Warden's office and have the inmate artist Marlowe Parker present the picture he painted for us.

We went Monday and I couldn't believe the picture Marlowe had painted.  All he had was a black and white picture and he painted everything in color.  He had Bella's eye color perfect! He had a red rose sticking out behind her back, like she used to do to pretend she was hiding something from Baylor.  And a red rose was her favorite flower!  There is a part of the picture where she is sitting in Jesus arms and her hair is darker and pulled back just as it was in the hospital. He told us that Jesus and the Holy Spirit gave him the will to this.  Im not sure if he had some outside help with this picture for all the colors but he swears that it was only the black and white picture.  He showed us his room where he paints and we toured around where he lives.  A warden gave us a first class tour.  We had a fabulous lunch with her also.  I was blown away how well that prison works.  It was a great day!

Many of you have asked how you can help, and I truly appreciate each one of you! In preparation for Bella’s Ball, we are currently seeking auction items. If you are interested in donating an item, please contact our Auction Chair, Leah Barbato at leah.barbato@bellabowman.org.