Fall 2005 Newsletter   click for links to other newsletter pages
Families Who 'Give Back'

Families give back in so many ways; whether it is setting up a fund to help other families or whether it is donating back to a fund that they benefited from years ago.

We are inspired when we receive
notes like this one:
Handwritten note from grandparents
click to view Tom Sustic Fund pageLikely, if you have been a reader of this newsletter or our website, you have seen notices for events and 'thank yous' from the concerts to benefit the Tom Sustic Fund. Perhaps you have wondered about this Fund and Tom's story? (view www.partoparvt.org/Sustic.html for concert updates)

Mark Sustic and Deborah Travis have long been involved with Parent to Parent. Mark, Tom's dad, is a former Board President, a recipient of the 1997 Partners in Care Award, and is an accomplished musician. It all feels natural that he would use Parent to Parent and his musical contacts to support his son and later to sustain the fund for others in Tom's honor.

The Tom Sustic Fund was originally established to support a bone marrow transplant for Tom. Most of this money was generated through a series of benefit events in 1999 and 2000. Sadly, after several bone marrow drives, and continuous monitoring and searching through several million samples on the available registries in North America and Europe, an ideal donor was never located. Tom died on July 4th, 2001, after a two-year battle with leukemia. [Are you interested in Joining the Bone Marrow Registry? National Marrow Donor Program]

Many have indicated how they were inspired by what Tom wrote in one of his journals. It is a reminder that we should always 'try to be happy..., to try and look on the plus side of things, try to live our lives full of fun, because every moment of it counts...' It continues to be the hope of Tom's family and Parent to Parent that for everyone involved in this series, it's as much about having some fun as anything else. There are two primary reasons for the series: 1) It creates a setting for some exceptional musicians  - and equally exceptional friends of the Sustic family - to present the best possible performance of which they are capable, and 2) It raises awareness about families with children with cancer and raises funds for the Tom Sustic Fund - funds that will be used to help other families in need. 

Making a Donation
Donations can be made to the Tom Sustic Fund by sending a check to Parent to Parent of Vermont
('Tom Sustic Fund' in the memo section). You can receive Mark's emails about concert events by sending a message to mrksustc@together.net.
Donations to any designated fund can be made online!
Doing these events represents a connection Tom and his mom and dad have had, for many years, with the performers who are featured at the events. The events help recreate an environment that was familiar to Tom, and they gather many of the same people who knew him in these settings. 

Since then, the family's intent has been to sustain the fund at its original level as a base amount. The hope is to add to it incrementally with the concert series, growing the fund as an endowment so that it will be self-sustaining and continually generating revenue that will be used to support other families whose children have cancer, particularly those in need of transplantation. Y 




The note at the right refers to Parent to Parent's 'Brookes Baker Family Support Fund'. The mission of this Fund is to respond to family-identified needs that cannot be met by another individual, agency, or organization. In 1991, Parent to Parent of Vermont was the recipient of a grant awarded by Tim and Tanya Baker, parents of Brookes who died at the age of eight in 1988.
Fall 2005 - In this Issue:
Family Connections: Button Story
From Our Director: People Work Together
Conference Fund: Rasmussen Story

Where's the Waste Update
Community News: ASD Support Group & Therapeutic Riding
Parent to Parent News: Library & Funding
Family Voices of Vermont
Thanks, Development & Outreach
Our Calendar | News & Note

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