Help Lauren's family to take one last family vacation

I'm Emma and I'm fundraising for my amazing cousin, friend, and former co-photographer, Lauren Soloy, who is a beautiful mother, wife, daughter, neice, granddaughter, and a well-loved children's book author-illustrator. Lauren has been told she has very little time left, and the one wish she and her children and husband have is to take a family vacation together to make just a few more lasting memories together.

Lauren has stage 4 Cancer that recurred three years after everyone thought she had it beat. After six months of chemo to hopefully give her just a little more time, the doctors have told Lauren she should travel now while she is feeling relatively good, but not to go too far away.

The trip Lauren and her family are dreaming about is a train ride from Halifax to Toronto, to remind them of the epic train ride Lauren and the kids did all the way to Vancouver in 2019. They loved every minute of the train trip - sleeping in berths and eating in the dining car, plus all the amazing scenery.

On this trip, they'd spend four nights in downtown Toronto, so they can do all the things Lauren always wanted to do, but somehow never managed - the Art Gallery, the ROM, the Osborne Collection of Early Children's Books and lots more... Then they'd rent a car, and drive to Niagara Falls, where they'd like to stay for four nights. Lauren has never seen the Falls, and the kids are excited about all the attractions - Butterfly World and Wizard's Mini Golf, and the Maze of Mirrors, and so much more, plus the falls themselves. Finally, they'd drive back to Holland Landing, where Jai's parents live, and spend a couple of nights at their house, visiting family, before flying home.

As a photographer, Lauren will likely document this trip for her family to have, and along with the photographs they will have to remind them, they will all burn it into their memories as a time of laughter, adventure, leisure, and love.

Lauren has been so incredibly graceful in handling her prognosis and treatments, when many of us would not know how to take another step. She told me there is something beautiful about realizing you're already doing the things you would do if you knew you were dying.

She is incredibly still working on her books, hoping to leave at least four more for the world as part of her legacy.

Let's help Lauren's kids and husband to have memories of the four of them on the trip they've been dreaming up together, and give Lauren the peace that will come from one last grand adventure, seeing those sights she hasn't seen and giving her family this gift.