Hello everyone,

I’m reaching out today with a very heavy heart. I want to ask each and every one of you to join me in strong, sincere prayer for my dear friend Derrick Mikes, known to so many as Dadal. Right now, Derrick’s wife and children are facing a level of pain and struggle that no family should ever have to face — especially during a season meant to be filled with joy, warmth, and love.

They are trying to make it through Christmas while carrying an unbearable weight, and our hearts are breaking for them. His children are facing Christmas without their father. His wife is facing the holidays without her husband. Cancer has become a tragic and life-altering moment for this family, and they desperately need love, support, and community around them.

So today, I’m asking all of us — as a city, as neighbors, as family, as classmates — to wrap this family in prayer. If you are able, I’m asking from the deepest place of compassion to consider offering any monetary donation, any contribution, any act of kindness, big or small, that could help bring light into this darkness. Even a little hope can feel like a miracle right now.

It takes all of us. It takes a village. And right now, we have a chance to be that village. We have a chance to lift this family up, to stand in the gap, and to show them that they are not alone in this world.

Thank you — and remember, love is love.