11/6/16

Ashleigh and I have been very busy over the past month and we are excited to share several updates with everyone:

1) For Ellie Foundation, Inc. is now 100% official and recognized by the IRS as a 501(c)3 non-profit organization! Thank you to Jay Walsh and our amazing friends at Liff & Walsh, LLP and Joe Novotny and our amazing friends at Novotny, Larash & Venters, P.A. for making this happen so quickly! We are finishing up our website, our Facebook page and look forward to launching them both very soon. We have several exciting and unique ideas that we will share ASAP but in the meantime we wanted to share our For Ellie Foundation Mission Statement:
Creating a more beautiful world through random acts of kindness.

2) MOONFLOWER GARDEN: After finalizing plans and interviewing several companies, we have selected Musgrave Lawn & Landscaping to bring the vision to reality. Our hope is that work begins later this month.

3) AAMC $20,000 DONATION: The hospital and Ashleigh are scheduling Ellie's Cart Naming Ceremony for Mid-December. At that time we will officially make the donation! We're not exactly sure about the ceremony details yet but we will share more as we get closer.

4) Ellie's banner for today's All Saints' Service at Woods Memorial Presbyterian Church.

Thank you all for your continued support!





9/21/16

Donation Update: Anne Arundel Medical Center

Ashleigh and I have finalized the plans for the $20,000 donation to AAMC with the help of the AAMC Foundation and we are very excited to share with you the details.

Donation Details:
* Ellie's Cart of Hope: Named in memory of Ellie (pictured below). This cart provides toys, games and and therapy play aides for children at the DeCesaris Family Pediatric Unit. Donation to supply cart for 1-year. ($2,500)

* Child Life Specialists Program: This program supports hundreds of families every week and oversees Ellie's Cart of Hope. Our donation will go to help fund this program. ($5,000)

* COPE: This peer-to-peer support program provides counseling and support to nurses and doctors when they have a traumatic emergency (like Ellie's). COPE program is instrumental in providing the support needed to allow caregivers to heal and continue to do the important work they do. Our donation will fund this program for 1-year. ($2,500)

* Critical Care Simulation: Our donation will fully fund a critical care simulation training for the Pediatric clinical care team. Training is provided by Johns Hopkins Hospital and helps AAMC save lives by preparing them for more unusual critical care situations. ($10,000)

There will be a ceremony held at AAMC for Ellie (date/time/details TBD). We will be sure to share the details once they are officially set.

We've also made great progress with the For Ellie Foundation and will be sharing those details in the coming weeks. For now, we wanted to share the logo!

Lastly, we've received several AWESOME #forEllie messages, emails and texts from people who have done an Act of Random Kindness or had and Act of Random Kindness done for them in Ellie's memory. These are amazing and it is helping to keep us going, along with simply making our day!!!

Love,
Matt & Ashleigh

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9/16/16

Moonflower Garden Update:

We are excited to share that Ellie's Moonflower Garden is 99% designed and attached to this post are a to-scale drawing of Labyrinth w/ the addition of the garden, also a to-scale (zoomed-in) design of the garden and a 'before' picture of the land where the garden will be. There is no timeline yet but we will share timeline and dedication plans ASAP.

However, the Labyrinth itself is complete and open to the public if you'd like to stop by to see it. The plantings are scheduled for later this month once the weather cools and the benches have been ordered and should be in before the dedication ceremony.





9/9/16

A few exciting updates to share:

1) Ellie's memorial fund just went over $30,000! WOW! Thank You!!!

2) We are meeting with the hospital next week about options for the donation. Their initial proposal is very exciting and we look forward to sharing our plans as soon as they are finalized.

3) The official garden dedication ceremony will be later this year (will post details ASAP) but the Labyrinth itself will be open to the public this WEEKEND. For more info, read this article from the Severna Park Voice, an article about the Labyrinth:
http://www.severnaparkvoice.com/community/woods-church-community-labyrinth-and-rain-garden-open-public

4) Part 2 of this article about Ellie's garden is coming soon. Will post ASAP.

We still have no answers as to why this happened to our sweet baby girl and might not still for a few more months. However, by the time we do find out, our goal is to have the garden, donation to the hospital and the creation of the For Ellie Foundation all completed.

"Do you know what it is to feel the light of love inside you?
And all the darkness falls away,
If you feel the way I feel then believe we have the answer,
I've been searching for tonight." - Dave Matthews
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8/31/16 PROJECT UPDATE:
The Labyrinth landscaping itself is complete and now the original garden is being planted to plan. We met this morning to brainstorm and begin planning Ellie's garden. It's going to be amazing and we promise to keep everyone updated on its progress and the eventual dedication date and time.

Ashleigh, Luke and I just got back from a wonderful and emotion-filled week at Deep Creek Lake with family and friends. While there we started planning the next steps that I mentioned in Ellie's eulogy as we continued to be lifted up by your amazing generosity and support to Ellie's Labyrinth Fund.

Therefore, we are now planning a long-term foundation to continue our new mission to help others and make the world a more beautiful place in Ellie's memory. We are in the very beginning phase of these plans but we will send out an update of our foundation ASAP.

We feel called upon to extend our reach beyond the initial plan because of the enourmous love and support our community, both near and far, has shown us these last 2.5 weeks.

We simply wanted to let everyone know that we have big plans in addition to the Labyrinth and hospital donation thanks to YOU!

Love,
Matt, Ashleigh & Luke

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8/24/16
"You will rest your head, your strength once saving.
And when you wake you will fly away,
holding tight to the legs of all your angels.

Goodbye my love, into your blue, blue eyes, your blue, blue world, you're my baby blue.

Confess I'm not quite ready to be left.
Still, I know I gave my level best.
You give, you give, to this I can attest
You made me, you made me.
You and me forever, baby."

- Dave Matthews, Baby Blue
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Matt's Eulogy for Ellie (Friday 8/19/16)

There are honestly no words to properly express our gratitude for the love, support and generosity that you have all shown my family over these past 5 days.

The best analogy I could come up with is that your LOVE has felt like a homemade quilt that’s been hand sewn together by an entire community and wrapped around my family to keep us warm on the very coldest night. Your warmth, plus my son Luke, has quite literally kept us all going.

Ashleigh and I, and both of our families can't begin to thank you all enough.

As of today, we still do not have answers of how or why this happened and might not for some time. However, we do know that we loved Ellie with all of our hearts and that there will be a hole in our hearts that will never be filled.

Moving forward is going to continue to be a long, difficult and at times an overwhelming process. As many of you have texted or posted in support, "there are no words" when sending over your thoughts, prayers and condolences. We completely agree. There are no words.

Therefore I am asking that the next time you see us, please know that a long hug, a cry and/or an Ellie memory shared together will go so VERY much further than any words every could.

Losing Ellie this past Sunday night has changed me forever. No two ways about it.

However, I do feel that we have TWO options as to HOW do we handle this tragedy.

1.   We could dig a hole and hide from the world.

OR

2.   We could dig a hole and build a garden for the world.

It took less than 24 hours for us to realize that we are Option #2 people.

This building of a garden for the world will start quite literally with the Labyrinth project.

When my family broke ground just two weeks ago for Woods Memorial Presbyterian Church's Labyrinth and Garden, we did so in memory of my grandparents, and Ellie's great-grandparents, Jerry and Elizabeth Wyble.

As I stand before you today, more than $18,500 has been raised in just 3 days. All I can say is WOW and Thank You! We will now be able to finish funding on the original project plus add Ellie’s child-sized bench and memorial moonflower garden. The moonflower, which blooms only at night or an overcast day, was MeMe’s favorite flower because it brought both beauty and light to the darkness. How appropriate that Ellie’s garden will bring both beauty and light to the Labyrinth even on the darkest day or night.

In those same posts or text messages I referenced earlier, many people have asked if there's anything they can do to help us or how they can help us moving forward.

Yes there is. Let’s build a “garden” for the world together in Ellie’s memory.

My definition of a ‘garden’, is whenever people selflessly work together to make the world a better and more beautiful place.

So if you’d like to help us, please consider doing at least one thing you’ve never done before to make the world a more beautiful place. Volunteer somewhere new, donate to a cause that is special to your family or simply pay it forward to a complete stranger. If you do so, message us and let us know it was ‘For Ellie’ or put #ForEllie on your Facebook or Instagram.

Ashleigh and I will be kicking off our personal ‘For Ellie’ campaign tomorrow when we donate our Caboose rental on the Western Maryland Railroad, which was going to be our kick-off to vacation in Deep Creek, to a family that the WMR will be selecting at random. They will upgrade the family to the private Caboose and let them know about our sweet Ellie and our wishes that they simply pay it forward.

As Dave Matthews wrote in his song, “You Might Die Trying”:

“To change the world, start with one step.
However small, the first step is hardest of all.
If you give, you begin to live, you get the world.”

In closing, nothing will ever replace our sweet baby Ellie. While trying to reflect on what has happened, I keep thinking back to the second we found out that we were having a girl last Thanksgiving. I immediately thought of all the amazing adventures we'd have as Father and Daughter and I joked with friends and family that I was going to give the world to my daughter. Although it won’t fully sink in until weeks, months or even years to come, I know two things.

1.   Ellie will be with us in love and spirit for every family adventure to come

2.   My daughter will actually give the world to me.

From the bottom of our hearts, we love you all.
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Wednesday 8/17/16

There are honestly no words to properly express our gratitude for the enourmous generosity you all have shown my family over the past 24 hours.

My grandparents' vision will be bigger and better than we could ever imagine amd our sweet Ellie's memory can live on forever in such a special way.

"Look at the stars,
Look how they shine for you,
And everything you do,
Yeah, they were all yellow.

I came along,
I wrote a song for you,
And all the things you do,
And it was called "Yellow".
So then I took my turn,
Oh what a thing to have done,
And it was all yellow.

Your skin,
Oh yeah your skin and bones,
Turn into
Something beautiful,
Do you know,
You know I love you so,
You know I love you so."

- Coldplay, "Yellow"

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Tuesday 8/16/16

When my family broke ground two weeks ago on August 1st for Woods Memorial Presbyterian Church's Labyrinth and Garden, we did so in memory of my grandparents, and Ellie's great-grandparents, Jerry and Elizabeth Wyble.

As you'll read in The Capital Gazette article, MeMe & Gramps always envisioned this beautiful place for the entire community to use to reflect and meditate in time of grief or sorrow.

We never imagined that less than 2-weeks after starting my grandparents' memorial garden, that our own family would be grieving the inconceivable loss of Ashleigh's and my daughter.

Our daughter, Ellie Elizabeth Wyble, died suddenly at 11:51pm on Sunday August 14th. Perfectly healthy for her almost 3 months, including this past Sunday morning, we still don't have any clue as to why this happened.

While we may not yet have any answers, we do know that we want to memorialize her in a special way. We couldn't think of a better way to do so then to finish funding on my grandparents project, plus add a kids-sized bench & Ellie's memorial moonflower garden to the original project.

100% of funds raised will go to finishing this project.

If we exceed the required funds needed to complete this project, we will donate the remainder as follows:
50% to AAMC Pediatric ER
50% to Johns Hopkins PICU

All donations will be made in Ellie's name.

We love you all and the support, prayers and thoughts have been a needed embrace during this most difficult time.

Love,
Matt & Ashleigh Wyble

Labyrinth Fund: Woods Memorial Presbyterian Church
(Click Link Above for The Capital Gazette Article)
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