On June 24, Just Keep Smiling received a $10,000 contribution from St. Elias Maronite Catholic Church. Just Keep Smiling was the impact charity for the 10th annual St. Elias Cedar Run 5K and Cedar Shake Fun Run, which was held in conjunction with the St. Elias Lebanese Food Festival on April 22, marking their 25th anniversary. While many charities benefit from the profits of the St. Elias Food Festival, the impact charity receives all monies from the Cedar Run 5K and Cedar Shake Fun Run sponsors and runners.

Jeanne Busby, Just Keep Smiling's executive director remarked, “St. Elias has been contributing to Just Keep Smiling and numerous other charities through proceeds raised from the Lebanese Food Festival for many years. Being selected as the impact charity from 2022-2024 does just that, heavily impacts lives of many families living with a critically ill child. The true impact made by receiving $10,000 again in 2023 will touch so many families adjusting to life with a critical child. Along with emotional despair, monthly finances easily snowball into additional anxieties. This contribution will pay many monthly house payments, car payments, utilities, and other expenses, allowing these parents to be with their child without accumulating additional debt. These parents will realize others care. They will experience the Body of Christ in action."

About Just Keep Smiling

For 18 years, Just Keep Smiling (JKS) was begun by three ladies who knew from firsthand experience not only the realities of a critically ill child but also the loss of a child. They understood that the struggles are real; emotionally, spiritually, and financially. Knowing that without the grace of God and the Body of Christ in action, devastation and despair could settle into every fiber of ones being. The heart and goal of these ladies and the Just Keep Smiling family remains; being Christ to the least of these by sharing His love. This is accomplished by alleviating monthly financial burdens with families on a similar journey.                                                        

Social workers qualifying the families, along with doctors, know when the parents need to be with their child in what is, often times, their last days or weeks. The ramifications of having a terminally ill child hospitalized and having utilities cut off, cars repossessed, filing bankruptcy and more, all as a direct result of their child's illness, is real. No parent wants to have to work during these often-lengthy crises - they just want to be with their child.

To learn more, visit www.justkeepsmiling.org or email JBusby@justkeepsmiling.org to see how you can get involved.