Artisans & ANGELS = success

Last Saturday was the annual Artisans & Angels event sponsored by the Pi Phi Alumnae club in KC to raise money for the Jordan Robert Mann Foundation. This was the 3rd year this event was held and it was quite the success, if I will say so myself! I did have the pleasure of meeting Jordan during his short, but wonderful life. He was one of my pledge sister's cousins and I remember meeting him when he came to K-State one time and thinking how great he was. Everyone that I knew had such wonderful things to say about him and it's so inspiring how much he impacted those around him and made the world a better place through his passions, activities, and love for life!! Here is a little bit about him and the JRM Foundation from his website:

Jordan was born and raised in Prairie Village, KS where he attended Briarwood Elementary, Mission Valley Middle School and was a 2003 graduate of Shawnee Mission East where he played soccer and was named to first teams, All State, All Metro, All Sunflower, and All Johnson Co. He was a member of the National Honor Society, National Beta Club, National Honor Roll, Principals Honor Roll and Kansas Honors Scholar. His senior year he was awarded the Art Newcomer Outstanding Student Athlete Award. He continued playing collegiate soccer at Furman University in Greenville, SC and Southern Methodist University (SMU) in Dallas, TX where he was selected to the Southern Conference Honor Roll and Conference USA Honor Roll. At SMU he was a major contributor to a nationally ranked soccer team, and in 2005 played in the collegiate Final Four tournament. He graduated from SMU in May, 2007 with a degree in Finance.

Jordan’s hidden talent resided in his artistic abilities in portraitures and random works that he painted, photographed or drew when inspired.

Jordan is remembered for his winning smile, his spirited or ornery sense of humor, his intuitive, innovative, intelligence, and his entrepreneurial spirit. He also had an insatiable love for all animals.

Jordan passed away unexpectedly on May 26, 2007 of a congenital heart abnormality that was undetected as he had no symptoms. The family has chosen to honor his life by establishing the Jordan Robert Mann Foundation which funds heart health assessments for athletes at participating schools, hoping to prevent any family from experiencing a similar tragedy. Their long term goal is to change how the medical community assesses and evaluates heart health in all athletes. 

MISSION: To honor Jordan's passionsby developing programs that challenge conventional theory regarding heart health and enhance the quality of life for others.  

OBJECTIVES:Phase 1: Implement pre-participation cardiovascular examinations at select NCAA institutions. Clinical data will be secured in an Institutional Review Board protected prospective registry intended for academic publication. Phase 2: Develop and implement an age-based pre-participation heart health assessment protocol for high school athletes utilizing readily available non-invasive and inexpensive technologies.

Phase 3: Establish a position paper emphasizing the value of pre-participation cardiovascular examinations, which can be used for local, regional and national programs.

I also had privilege of serving on the planning committee with some awesome women, who also happen to be some of my wonderful friends. It was so much fun working with them to plan the event and having our regular "meetings". Let me take a second to introduce you to them before going into the details of the event:

Haha - I just thought that was funny - love these girls!  But we had a great time helping each other get the event details organized and working with his mom on getting all the donor letters and invitations out. While the planning started way back when...let's jump to the event!

It was held at ARTichokes, in Mission Farms, which is a wonderful art studio that is a great space for the event. There's Lyssa at the check in table and the signs next to the table talking about the event and highlighting an alumnae club event :)

Here was the wall where Jordan's art was on display for everyone to see when they first walked in. He was truly an amazing artist!

 

Next up are some of the artist's tables where they had their items on sale from 12-5 and then during the actual event from 6-9 as well. There was some great stuff this year - including some awesome stemless wine charms and Jordan's aunt had some of her fabulous angel paintings for sale! Lots of artists were very happy with the sales made that day and loved the event - which is great!!

Don't forget the silent auction table and items - there was some GREAT stuff this year!! 

 

And Pi Phi was representing with cookie cutters and cook books for sale!

And finally - a few of the wonderful bartenders and waitresses, who were local pi phi members from KU and K-State that were so awesome to give up some of their weekend to help out with this event

Overall, it was a blast and we raised a lot of money for the foundation and had a lot of fun!  So glad I was able to be a part of helping plan it.  So thanks to everyone that was able to make it out for the event :)