The Groom family is proud to honor Chris with the Chris Groom Memorial Fund, benefiting needy and underprivileged children throughout the area. You can support this fund through a direct donation or by sponsoring Suzanne in her Richmond Marathon this November. We want to spread Chris’ spirit to help less fortunate children. 100% of your donation will go towards the many children’s organizations we support throughout the year.

The Holiday season is always the busiest time of the year for our family. Following the Richmond Marathon that Suzanne runs each November, she immediately begins to work with area school counselors to provide new coats, shoes, hats, gloves, underwear and socks to kids in need.

In addition, we participate in the “Holiday Cheer Program” through Wake County Social Services where we provide Christmas gifts for the children of individual needy families. We also actively participate in “Backpack Buddies”, a program that provides meals over the weekend for school children who receive free or reduced lunches at school, but who sometimes go an entire weekend with little or no food until they return to school. The Memorial Fund also works with “Send-a-Kid-to-Camp” each year, a local program where we pay the tuition and fees to send kids to summer camps who otherwise would never be able to afford those amazing
experiences.

Then, a couple of weeks before Christmas, more than 50 friends and family members join The Groom Family for our annual Toys-For-Tots shopping spree at Target. As always, Mike rents a moving truck and our goal is to fill up the truck with toys, bikes, scooters, books, etc. The next morning, our family delivers all the gifts to the Bayleaf Fire Department in Raleigh, one of the only Toys-For-Tots drop-off sites large enough to handle our truckload. This is really the highlight of each year for the Chris Groom Memorial Fund. The firefighters all look forward to this day and many bring their families to participate as we unload the truck full of gifts onto the floor of their station bays, ready to be delivered to hundreds of families through the Toys-For-Tots program.

With this letter, we hope that you have a good understanding of how your sponsorship dollars will be used. You should feel proud that your generosity every year will help to provide Christmas joy to needy and underprivileged children in our community.

October 23, 2003 forever changed our lives. When you suffer the loss of a child, you are forced to make some tough decisions. Our family decided to honor Chris’ memory by continuing what he started with his “secret” gift…to give back and enrich the lives of children less fortunate than our own…on his behalf. Your support of our family and your generous sponsorship donations to the Chris Groom Memorial Fund has been amazing. And to this we say…THANK YOU!

With grateful appreciation,

The Groom Family (Mike, Suzanne, Chase, Madison, Gabrielle, Austin and Grayson…and of course, Chris)

If you wish to make a donation by check, please make your check payable to the address below:

Chris Groom Memorial Fund

9200 Miranda Drive

Raleigh, NC 276157

919-349-4329 (Suzanne)

919-906-5432 (Mike)