Wow.

WE DID IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


In January, jpettibone and I talked about starting about our millionth group. The goal would be to make 3,000 items for charity in 2007 to honor the 3,000 US soldiers who at that time were counted as killed in Iraq. We did the math. 3,000 divided by 12 was, well, an awful lot of items. But we started the group anyway. We promoted the community to other livejournal communities and to the livejournal promo community and even bothered and begged our friends.

Slowly but surely, we noticed that a few people were following us. Death by yarn, doclegs, lindsoriah...you were some of the first ones I remember who joined us! 3,000 seemed like it was a long way away, but we were having a great time and we were doing some good. What better combination is there?

As the months went on a lot happened that sort of made making the actual goal irrelevant. We met a lot of wonderful people, we started working in all kinds of internet venues, and the stuff our members made was just always glorious and right from the heart. We made the lj spotlight over the Summer, which was fun and amazing and exciting. We started projects like Bags o' Sunshine that the wonderful doclegs so beautifully ran for us. We had the square contest run by funfairiegirl, and the wonderful crazigriffen who sewed all of those squares together for us.

As we got closer to the holidays, I didn't think we'd make 3,000. We had lots of projects going on but school and jobs seem to be in full force this time of year. So inconvenient! But Priscilla, Zort, and many others kept on plugging away. Then, all of a sudden, jezebel, ever the over-achiever, not only continued to run "how many people can we dress," but she also made a metric crap-load of cookies for a fundraiser! And then our dear singingjoy, so aptly named, just posted 144 amazing hand-made cards for A Million Thanks.

I hope that 2007 remains only the first of many many years for this group. I hope that we can grow into a non-profit charitable foundation someday. But I have to tell you, this year will always hold a special, special place in my heart because it was the first year. I first met all of you, and you were the pioneers who stuck around as we plodded on.

Thank you to you all. Let's relax for a month and start thinking about Year 2, the Sequel :D