LIVING STRONG

Jazz                                             Gus

Gus here.  So not too long ago, when the weather was hotter, we were at a place we remember from before. Guardian called it the “Philly Livestrong Challenge” Village.  It was in a big grassy field next to some buildings, surrounded by huge paved areas with lots of cars. Guardian said it was some sort of college.  We knew it was going to be a different day when Guardian put our Therapy Dog jackets on.  In fact, it was going to be two special days, like it was last year and the year before. We were volunteers, and we were told to be serious about it.  Well, we're pugs, so, really, how serious can they expect us to be?


Guardian said people were walking and running and riding bicycles to get money for the something called the  "Livestrong Foundation."  They help people with a bad disease called cancer.  Guardian knows about that disease up close and personal.

This guy had ridden lots of miles...

...and this is where he finished

We met a girl who rode a bicycle that was missing a wheel.  Her Dad had died of cancer when she was a baby.  Today she’s 9, and she and her family came all the way from the middle of the United States to run or walk or cycle to raise money.  Her mom told us they have come every year to this Challenge.  This is the 6th year it’s been here. (If the video doesn't play, go to the link.)
http://youtu.be/rdn4pSYCRk8

Everywhere we went, people came over to pet us and tell us about their dogs. We did our tricks, and people laughed and laughed.    

There’s something about hope in laughter.

This was a team of people with orange shirts who loved seeing our tricks.
There were lots of other teams, but nobody else with those cool orange shirts.

Yep, it was a special two days. But we had a challenge to meet, too.

 Since we couldn’t raise money, we aimed to raise smiles. Our challenge was to leave the Philly Livestrong Challenge Village with more smiles than before we came.

You look at the photos and tell us... did we meet our challenge?