March 7, 2025 • 15 mins
Megan graduated from Marquette University with a liberal arts double major in Spanish and English and earned a minor in Philosophy. As an AFS student she attended the University of Sevilla and went on to attend the University of Madrid, Spain her junior year of college.
Her continuing desire to learn about other cultures and ways of life and to delve in completely through the language lead her to serve in the Peace Corps in Thailand from 1992-1994. During her 2 ½ years of service, Megan traveled to Calcutta, India to work with Mother Teresa. Megan adds, “I have always had a desire to serve, to know and understand others of different walks, backgrounds, and cultures. When I was young, I had a particular desire within me to give back to others and to learn from them as well. Mother Teresa was a very big example and role model to me. My experience observing Mother Teresa and serving the beautiful people in her homes who were either dying, diseased or sick physically and/or mentally had a major impact on my life as well as did the people I served in Thailand.”
Once back in the U.S. Megan was a pioneer on the Internet Team at Progressive Insurance, obtaining 3 patents.
In 2006, Megan’s 6-year-old daughter, Maria, was diagnosed with a deadly brain tumor with no hopeful treatment or cure. Maria was given 10 months to live and succumbed to the disease a year later after finishing her first grade year. Inspired by her daughter’s battle with the disease and the tremendous love that Maria had for her fellow friends suffering from cancer, Megan co-founded the Prayers from Maria Foundation with her husband Ed in 2006 with a mission to put childhood cancer at the forefront of the battle against cancer.
Megan and her husband Ed live in Cleveland, Ohio with Maria’s four brothers- Eddie, Aidan, Blake and Josh.
Her continuing desire to learn about other cultures and ways of life and to delve in completely through the language lead her to serve in the Peace Corps in Thailand from 1992-1994. During her 2 ½ years of service, Megan traveled to Calcutta, India to work with Mother Teresa. Megan adds, “I have always had a desire to serve, to know and understand others of different walks, backgrounds, and cultures. When I was young, I had a particular desire within me to give back to others and to learn from them as well. Mother Teresa was a very big example and role model to me. My experience observing Mother Teresa and serving the beautiful people in her homes who were either dying, diseased or sick physically and/or mentally had a major impact on my life as well as did the people I served in Thailand.”
Once back in the U.S. Megan was a pioneer on the Internet Team at Progressive Insurance, obtaining 3 patents.
In 2006, Megan’s 6-year-old daughter, Maria, was diagnosed with a deadly brain tumor with no hopeful treatment or cure. Maria was given 10 months to live and succumbed to the disease a year later after finishing her first grade year. Inspired by her daughter’s battle with the disease and the tremendous love that Maria had for her fellow friends suffering from cancer, Megan co-founded the Prayers from Maria Foundation with her husband Ed in 2006 with a mission to put childhood cancer at the forefront of the battle against cancer.
Megan and her husband Ed live in Cleveland, Ohio with Maria’s four brothers- Eddie, Aidan, Blake and Josh.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
This is a special edition of iHeartRadio CEOs. You should know.
Speaker 2 (00:04):
I'm Keith Hoshkiss.
Speaker 1 (00:05):
How do you pick up the pieces after the loss
of a child? Well Ed and Meghan McNamara turned their
tragedy into a loving tribute to the memory of their
daughter Maria that helps raise millions for kids all over
the world. That's the mission of Prayers for Maria. And
we talked with Megan about that incredible journey. So, Megan,
(00:26):
I think it's a story that you've told many times
and it's probably a heartbreaking story, but the actual story
of how Prayers for Maria started, would you share some
of that with our listeners.
Speaker 3 (00:38):
Sure.
Speaker 4 (00:39):
So in two thousand and six, our daughter Maria was
in kindergarten and she, out of what seemed like nowhere,
suddenly started to show odd symptoms. The side of her
face started to droop, and she became afraid to go
down the ste things like that, and and she was
(01:03):
also lashing out, you know, at odd times. So we thought,
what is going on here, you know, maybe, you know,
we should take her to the doctor. So we took
her to the doctor and they diagnosed her with Bell's palsy,
and they said she should be she should get.
Speaker 3 (01:18):
Better, and this will improve.
Speaker 4 (01:21):
And but what actually happened is she started to decline
even more. And I was pregnant at the time with
our fourth child, Blake, so I was, you know, we
were very absorbed in all of that. But Ed brought
Maria into the hospital to visit after Blake was born,
(01:41):
and I noticed immediately the decline, and so I said,
we need to get her into the doctor.
Speaker 3 (01:49):
We had a neighbor who was an e n T.
Speaker 4 (01:53):
And so we took her over to him because we
also noticed she was falling asleep, like right after school
and not and sleeping for a long time periods of time.
So we took her over to see our neighbor and
he immediately said, there's much more going on here than
Bell's palsy. We need to take her in for a
scan tomorrow. And so we took her in for the
(02:15):
scan and it happened very quickly. We took her back
to she had school that day and we were taking
her back to kindergarten and they called us and said,
this is something serious. You need to take her downtown
right away. And so we took her down town to
the Cleveland clinic and it was just a snowball from there.
(02:36):
They said, you know, they brought us into a room
and let us know that she was battling a brain
tumor that is one of the deadliest brain tumors that
is known to children, and it's called DIPG, which is
diffuse intrinsic ponting glioma, and that she had probably about
ten more months maybe to live. And this all happened
(03:01):
very quickly, and so we immediately at and I searched
for the best place to take her. We knew nothing.
We'd never heard of glioma before, we had never heard,
never known anyone with a brain tumor, and so it
was a scramble. And as we looked, we saw that
there was nothing. And the more we looked, the uglier
(03:23):
it got, the scarier it got, and we realized there's nothing.
Speaker 3 (03:29):
There's nothing for these kids.
Speaker 4 (03:31):
And ultimately, we after speaking to everybody across the country
for this type of tumor, we settled upon going down
to Saint Jude's and that's when we began the battle.
Maria did incredibly well with her treatment at Saint Jude's,
(03:52):
but the doctors cautioned us. They said sometimes there's kids
who do really well and they bounce back, and that's
called a false hope stage. And so immediately, you know,
we saw her bounce back. She became almost completely normal again,
and she was so excited herself that she was getting
(04:13):
better and feeling better. But it's a really cruel, cruel
thing because then it triggers and they start to decline
very even more rapidly, and then they eventually succumbed to
the disease.
Speaker 3 (04:29):
And that's what happened with Maria.
Speaker 1 (04:31):
And you, you know, battled alongside her, and as a
father of two daughters myself, I you know, I've heard
this story before, but can't help but tear up here. Yeah,
you and Ed and your family bravely were able to
create something out of this tragedy, and that's the Prayers
(04:56):
for Maria organization, which if you're from northeast Ohio, you're
familiar with the sunflower fields. But can you talk a
little bit about a how you were able to bounce
back and then be what you decided in her memory
to bring to the community.
Speaker 4 (05:13):
Yes, So, when we were at Saint Jude's, Maria would
be treated during the day, she'd meet a lot of
kids within the unit, and then we would go back
at night to where we were staying and we noticed
that Maria.
Speaker 3 (05:29):
Would pray for the kids that she met. Wow in
the unit. Yeah, so that really spoke to us, and.
Speaker 4 (05:40):
We just we knew that there was you know, death
was not something that was you know, it was imminent
that that would would come. And so we looked at
all of these kids or beautiful kids, and we just
ed and I knew we could do more for them.
So we have this inspiration of our daughter praying for
(06:02):
the for the kids that she's meeting, thinking to ourselves
that you've also got what they've got. You know, you've
also got a brain tumor. And we just couldn't not
do something. So and that's just the way Ed and
I are. We just we couldn't just breed time that
wasn't going on or walk away from it.
Speaker 3 (06:22):
We had to do something about it.
Speaker 4 (06:23):
And so we started the Prayers from Maria Foundation as
a way to try and answer Maria's prayers. And so
that's why it's called the Prayers from Maria Foundation. And
early on Maria was people identified her with the sunflower,
and the sunflower really is such a beautiful symbol for
(06:46):
these kids, and the many meetings behind the sunflower and
its significance and just as childlike appearance and way about
the flower, that really speaks to what we do as
a foundation. So eventually we started to plant the sunflower
(07:07):
field and that really took off in a really big way.
It really speaks to our foundation in every aspect.
Speaker 3 (07:16):
Really without saying anything.
Speaker 1 (07:19):
We're talking with Megan McNamara from Prayers from Maria Foundation,
a local but nationwide success story in terms of helping people.
What does what's the main mission of the Prayers from
Maria Foundation. How do you identify people that are worthy
(07:40):
of this organization?
Speaker 4 (07:42):
The main goal for us is to alleviate the suffering
of these kids and their families.
Speaker 3 (07:51):
We want to help them.
Speaker 4 (07:54):
We want to take their suffering away in any way
that we can, and the most critical way that we
work with is grant giving to research to get these
ideas off the shelves and into the labs where there
is promising work actively being done for these kids where
(08:16):
there was none before, so that's critical to us. We
also want to provide compassionate care for them in the
here and now, so we also fund for example, a
Nurse Navigator program where when people are newly diagnosed, they
don't have to do what Ed and I did, where
(08:37):
we're deer in the headlights.
Speaker 3 (08:39):
We're calling all over the.
Speaker 4 (08:40):
Place trying to find the answers with a very short
period of time. In Maria's case, they said she needs
to be in you need to find a place within
by the end of this weekend.
Speaker 3 (08:50):
And we didn't know anything about this disease at all.
Speaker 4 (08:53):
So with the Nurse Navigator program that we along with
several other Family Foundations funness from across the country to
provide answers to people who to families who are newly diagnosed,
so they help guide them, direct them, provide information for them.
It's huge because until now, until this Navigator program, these
(09:18):
families had nothing. So it's providing help to them in
the here and now as well.
Speaker 2 (09:23):
Can you talk a little bit about the Nurse Navigator program?
Is it an app? Is it a talk a little
bit about what that is.
Speaker 4 (09:29):
You can go online to this website. It gives you
all this information. I'm going to get the website wrong,
but I think it's it's Google Nurse, Yeah, Nurse Navigator, DIPG,
Nurse navigator and you can find it immediately, and we
have I believe there's four or five nurses that are
full time and they take calls from all over the world.
(09:53):
And this is a problem not just in our country,
but it's a problem overseas as well. Sure, and so
in fact, Perish Maria has funded research projects globally. So
anyone in this world, in this brain tumor glioma, brain
tumor world for children, they know who we are. And
(10:17):
that also speaks to we're a small foundation actually growing
quite quickly, but a foundation here in northeast Ohio that
is known globally, and that speaks to how little is
being done for these kids that the players who are
(10:38):
in it in the research world know exactly.
Speaker 3 (10:41):
Who we are.
Speaker 1 (10:42):
You know, I think it's would be remiss if we
didn't say, how do people be part of this incredible organization?
Right because it's you know, knowing that the radio stations
that we work here in iHeartRadio is a huge partner
with the Saint Jude Children's Research Hospital and the incredible
work data. Yes, but because the need is still unfortunately
(11:04):
never ending, how do folks contribute to your organization? You know,
you're familiar with the sunflowers, you're familiar with maybe the
herd of the name. But you know there is there
a need, that there's always a need. What's the need,
what's the greatest need. What's the easiest way for folks
listening to be part of this?
Speaker 4 (11:22):
I would say if people could participate in the events
that we that we have. For example, in March, the
month of March, we have been blessed to have Jersey
mike Select Prayers for Maria as their charity partner this year,
and we are going to be in forty four of
the Jersey Mike's stores in Northeast Ohio and they have
(11:46):
a day of giving on March twenty six. What I
love about Jersey Mike's is that this day of giving,
every single penny spent at the Jersey Mike's store, or
not just the profits, every single penny goes to the
charity of choice, which is Prayers for Maria this year.
Speaker 2 (12:07):
That's fantastic.
Speaker 4 (12:07):
So people, I mean, it's as easy as going in
and buying a sub at Jersey Mikes on March twenty six,
and that.
Speaker 3 (12:15):
That helps us.
Speaker 1 (12:16):
If you spend you know, twelve dollars at Jersey Mikes.
It's not like three dollars is going to the charity.
It's all all twelve dollars.
Speaker 4 (12:23):
Every every penny you spend that day goes to the charity,
you know, whether it's your your office, you know, or
or just you individually.
Speaker 3 (12:31):
That is so helpful to us.
Speaker 2 (12:33):
March twenty six.
Speaker 1 (12:34):
Don't forget deed at Jersey Mike's for sure right, and
of course support them other times too.
Speaker 2 (12:39):
Yes, what is the future of your organization?
Speaker 1 (12:42):
What's the you know, you want to try and eliminate
as much friction to folks getting help with this disease.
But you know, where does the where's the need continue
to grow? Like, do you grow into different cities? Do
you expand their need? I mean, what's your next steps?
Speaker 3 (12:58):
That is the goal. We want to expand the sunflower fields.
Speaker 4 (13:01):
Yeah, so we're looking to grow nationally and we have
some plans in the works for that. I'll hopefully be
able to come back and discuss it another time with
you guys, but we have really great plans.
Speaker 3 (13:15):
And the works for that.
Speaker 1 (13:17):
Megan McNamara from Prayers from Maria the organization.
Speaker 2 (13:22):
Every charity I.
Speaker 1 (13:23):
Think has the best intentions for the most part, but
I can't imagine a charity more impactful than helping kids
who are diagnosed with a terminal illness. So if you
can support prayers from Maria, please do so in any
way you can support. Certainly, if you're listening to this
on or around March twenty six, twenty twenty five, be
(13:47):
sure to stop at Jersey Mike's that day and all
your money and all your proces will go there. But
of course you can donate at any time right the website.
Speaker 4 (13:54):
Right, And we have events, you know, throughout the summer.
We have the Sunflower Wine Festival River and we also
will be blooming our fields will be blooming at Cedar Point, yes,
and in Avon at our new permanent location there. So
if you know, it's just just a matter.
Speaker 3 (14:13):
Of coming and visiting.
Speaker 4 (14:14):
And what we love we love with our fundraisers we
call we like win wins is what we call them.
Where people can come and enjoy themselves. It's not a
you know, a stuffy benefit type of thing. It's a
you know, we like to One of the things we
love about our fields is that they give back to
(14:36):
the community, by the way, correct, you know what I mean?
And and so we think that that is fantastic. They
offer a place of comfort and solace to so many
people for so many different reasons, and so that we
we love that.
Speaker 1 (14:52):
I want to give you and your family a lot
of credit for rebounding from this tragedy and turning a
horrible nightmare into potentially a piece of hope.
Speaker 2 (15:08):
For some others.
Speaker 1 (15:10):
So congratulations on all your success and we're going to
we're going to continue to try and get the word
out and and help you guys continue to grow and
hopefully we'll be talking soon about the continued work that
the prayers from Maria Foundation and Megan McNamara.
Speaker 2 (15:26):
Thank you for joining.
Speaker 1 (15:26):
Us and this has been iHeartRadio CEOs. You should know
today's show is produced by Bob COATESID.
Speaker 2 (15:33):
I'm Keith Hotchkiss. We'll see you next time.
This is a special edition of iHeartRadio CEOs. You should know.
Speaker 2 (00:04):
I'm Keith Hoshkiss.
Speaker 1 (00:05):
How do you pick up the pieces after the loss
of a child? Well Ed and Meghan McNamara turned their
tragedy into a loving tribute to the memory of their
daughter Maria that helps raise millions for kids all over
the world. That's the mission of Prayers for Maria. And
we talked with Megan about that incredible journey. So, Megan,
(00:26):
I think it's a story that you've told many times
and it's probably a heartbreaking story, but the actual story
of how Prayers for Maria started, would you share some
of that with our listeners.
Speaker 3 (00:38):
Sure.
Speaker 4 (00:39):
So in two thousand and six, our daughter Maria was
in kindergarten and she, out of what seemed like nowhere,
suddenly started to show odd symptoms. The side of her
face started to droop, and she became afraid to go
down the ste things like that, and and she was
(01:03):
also lashing out, you know, at odd times. So we thought,
what is going on here, you know, maybe, you know,
we should take her to the doctor. So we took
her to the doctor and they diagnosed her with Bell's palsy,
and they said she should be she should get.
Speaker 3 (01:18):
Better, and this will improve.
Speaker 4 (01:21):
And but what actually happened is she started to decline
even more. And I was pregnant at the time with
our fourth child, Blake, so I was, you know, we
were very absorbed in all of that. But Ed brought
Maria into the hospital to visit after Blake was born,
(01:41):
and I noticed immediately the decline, and so I said,
we need to get her into the doctor.
Speaker 3 (01:49):
We had a neighbor who was an e n T.
Speaker 4 (01:53):
And so we took her over to him because we
also noticed she was falling asleep, like right after school
and not and sleeping for a long time periods of time.
So we took her over to see our neighbor and
he immediately said, there's much more going on here than
Bell's palsy. We need to take her in for a
scan tomorrow. And so we took her in for the
(02:15):
scan and it happened very quickly. We took her back
to she had school that day and we were taking
her back to kindergarten and they called us and said,
this is something serious. You need to take her downtown
right away. And so we took her down town to
the Cleveland clinic and it was just a snowball from there.
(02:36):
They said, you know, they brought us into a room
and let us know that she was battling a brain
tumor that is one of the deadliest brain tumors that
is known to children, and it's called DIPG, which is
diffuse intrinsic ponting glioma, and that she had probably about
ten more months maybe to live. And this all happened
(03:01):
very quickly, and so we immediately at and I searched
for the best place to take her. We knew nothing.
We'd never heard of glioma before, we had never heard,
never known anyone with a brain tumor, and so it
was a scramble. And as we looked, we saw that
there was nothing. And the more we looked, the uglier
(03:23):
it got, the scarier it got, and we realized there's nothing.
Speaker 3 (03:29):
There's nothing for these kids.
Speaker 4 (03:31):
And ultimately, we after speaking to everybody across the country
for this type of tumor, we settled upon going down
to Saint Jude's and that's when we began the battle.
Maria did incredibly well with her treatment at Saint Jude's,
(03:52):
but the doctors cautioned us. They said sometimes there's kids
who do really well and they bounce back, and that's
called a false hope stage. And so immediately, you know,
we saw her bounce back. She became almost completely normal again,
and she was so excited herself that she was getting
(04:13):
better and feeling better. But it's a really cruel, cruel
thing because then it triggers and they start to decline
very even more rapidly, and then they eventually succumbed to
the disease.
Speaker 3 (04:29):
And that's what happened with Maria.
Speaker 1 (04:31):
And you, you know, battled alongside her, and as a
father of two daughters myself, I you know, I've heard
this story before, but can't help but tear up here. Yeah,
you and Ed and your family bravely were able to
create something out of this tragedy, and that's the Prayers
(04:56):
for Maria organization, which if you're from northeast Ohio, you're
familiar with the sunflower fields. But can you talk a
little bit about a how you were able to bounce
back and then be what you decided in her memory
to bring to the community.
Speaker 4 (05:13):
Yes, So, when we were at Saint Jude's, Maria would
be treated during the day, she'd meet a lot of
kids within the unit, and then we would go back
at night to where we were staying and we noticed
that Maria.
Speaker 3 (05:29):
Would pray for the kids that she met. Wow in
the unit. Yeah, so that really spoke to us, and.
Speaker 4 (05:40):
We just we knew that there was you know, death
was not something that was you know, it was imminent
that that would would come. And so we looked at
all of these kids or beautiful kids, and we just
ed and I knew we could do more for them.
So we have this inspiration of our daughter praying for
(06:02):
the for the kids that she's meeting, thinking to ourselves
that you've also got what they've got. You know, you've
also got a brain tumor. And we just couldn't not
do something. So and that's just the way Ed and
I are. We just we couldn't just breed time that
wasn't going on or walk away from it.
Speaker 3 (06:22):
We had to do something about it.
Speaker 4 (06:23):
And so we started the Prayers from Maria Foundation as
a way to try and answer Maria's prayers. And so
that's why it's called the Prayers from Maria Foundation. And
early on Maria was people identified her with the sunflower,
and the sunflower really is such a beautiful symbol for
(06:46):
these kids, and the many meetings behind the sunflower and
its significance and just as childlike appearance and way about
the flower, that really speaks to what we do as
a foundation. So eventually we started to plant the sunflower
(07:07):
field and that really took off in a really big way.
It really speaks to our foundation in every aspect.
Speaker 3 (07:16):
Really without saying anything.
Speaker 1 (07:19):
We're talking with Megan McNamara from Prayers from Maria Foundation,
a local but nationwide success story in terms of helping people.
What does what's the main mission of the Prayers from
Maria Foundation. How do you identify people that are worthy
(07:40):
of this organization?
Speaker 4 (07:42):
The main goal for us is to alleviate the suffering
of these kids and their families.
Speaker 3 (07:51):
We want to help them.
Speaker 4 (07:54):
We want to take their suffering away in any way
that we can, and the most critical way that we
work with is grant giving to research to get these
ideas off the shelves and into the labs where there
is promising work actively being done for these kids where
(08:16):
there was none before, so that's critical to us. We
also want to provide compassionate care for them in the
here and now, so we also fund for example, a
Nurse Navigator program where when people are newly diagnosed, they
don't have to do what Ed and I did, where
(08:37):
we're deer in the headlights.
Speaker 3 (08:39):
We're calling all over the.
Speaker 4 (08:40):
Place trying to find the answers with a very short
period of time. In Maria's case, they said she needs
to be in you need to find a place within
by the end of this weekend.
Speaker 3 (08:50):
And we didn't know anything about this disease at all.
Speaker 4 (08:53):
So with the Nurse Navigator program that we along with
several other Family Foundations funness from across the country to
provide answers to people who to families who are newly diagnosed,
so they help guide them, direct them, provide information for them.
It's huge because until now, until this Navigator program, these
(09:18):
families had nothing. So it's providing help to them in
the here and now as well.
Speaker 2 (09:23):
Can you talk a little bit about the Nurse Navigator program?
Is it an app? Is it a talk a little
bit about what that is.
Speaker 4 (09:29):
You can go online to this website. It gives you
all this information. I'm going to get the website wrong,
but I think it's it's Google Nurse, Yeah, Nurse Navigator, DIPG,
Nurse navigator and you can find it immediately, and we
have I believe there's four or five nurses that are
full time and they take calls from all over the world.
(09:53):
And this is a problem not just in our country,
but it's a problem overseas as well. Sure, and so
in fact, Perish Maria has funded research projects globally. So
anyone in this world, in this brain tumor glioma, brain
tumor world for children, they know who we are. And
(10:17):
that also speaks to we're a small foundation actually growing
quite quickly, but a foundation here in northeast Ohio that
is known globally, and that speaks to how little is
being done for these kids that the players who are
(10:38):
in it in the research world know exactly.
Speaker 3 (10:41):
Who we are.
Speaker 1 (10:42):
You know, I think it's would be remiss if we
didn't say, how do people be part of this incredible organization?
Right because it's you know, knowing that the radio stations
that we work here in iHeartRadio is a huge partner
with the Saint Jude Children's Research Hospital and the incredible
work data. Yes, but because the need is still unfortunately
(11:04):
never ending, how do folks contribute to your organization? You know,
you're familiar with the sunflowers, you're familiar with maybe the
herd of the name. But you know there is there
a need, that there's always a need. What's the need,
what's the greatest need. What's the easiest way for folks
listening to be part of this?
Speaker 4 (11:22):
I would say if people could participate in the events
that we that we have. For example, in March, the
month of March, we have been blessed to have Jersey
mike Select Prayers for Maria as their charity partner this year,
and we are going to be in forty four of
the Jersey Mike's stores in Northeast Ohio and they have
(11:46):
a day of giving on March twenty six. What I
love about Jersey Mike's is that this day of giving,
every single penny spent at the Jersey Mike's store, or
not just the profits, every single penny goes to the
charity of choice, which is Prayers for Maria this year.
Speaker 2 (12:07):
That's fantastic.
Speaker 4 (12:07):
So people, I mean, it's as easy as going in
and buying a sub at Jersey Mikes on March twenty six,
and that.
Speaker 3 (12:15):
That helps us.
Speaker 1 (12:16):
If you spend you know, twelve dollars at Jersey Mikes.
It's not like three dollars is going to the charity.
It's all all twelve dollars.
Speaker 4 (12:23):
Every every penny you spend that day goes to the charity,
you know, whether it's your your office, you know, or
or just you individually.
Speaker 3 (12:31):
That is so helpful to us.
Speaker 2 (12:33):
March twenty six.
Speaker 1 (12:34):
Don't forget deed at Jersey Mike's for sure right, and
of course support them other times too.
Speaker 2 (12:39):
Yes, what is the future of your organization?
Speaker 1 (12:42):
What's the you know, you want to try and eliminate
as much friction to folks getting help with this disease.
But you know, where does the where's the need continue
to grow? Like, do you grow into different cities? Do
you expand their need? I mean, what's your next steps?
Speaker 3 (12:58):
That is the goal. We want to expand the sunflower fields.
Speaker 4 (13:01):
Yeah, so we're looking to grow nationally and we have
some plans in the works for that. I'll hopefully be
able to come back and discuss it another time with
you guys, but we have really great plans.
Speaker 3 (13:15):
And the works for that.
Speaker 1 (13:17):
Megan McNamara from Prayers from Maria the organization.
Speaker 2 (13:22):
Every charity I.
Speaker 1 (13:23):
Think has the best intentions for the most part, but
I can't imagine a charity more impactful than helping kids
who are diagnosed with a terminal illness. So if you
can support prayers from Maria, please do so in any
way you can support. Certainly, if you're listening to this
on or around March twenty six, twenty twenty five, be
(13:47):
sure to stop at Jersey Mike's that day and all
your money and all your proces will go there. But
of course you can donate at any time right the website.
Speaker 4 (13:54):
Right, And we have events, you know, throughout the summer.
We have the Sunflower Wine Festival River and we also
will be blooming our fields will be blooming at Cedar Point, yes,
and in Avon at our new permanent location there. So
if you know, it's just just a matter.
Speaker 3 (14:13):
Of coming and visiting.
Speaker 4 (14:14):
And what we love we love with our fundraisers we
call we like win wins is what we call them.
Where people can come and enjoy themselves. It's not a
you know, a stuffy benefit type of thing. It's a
you know, we like to One of the things we
love about our fields is that they give back to
(14:36):
the community, by the way, correct, you know what I mean?
And and so we think that that is fantastic. They
offer a place of comfort and solace to so many
people for so many different reasons, and so that we
we love that.
Speaker 1 (14:52):
I want to give you and your family a lot
of credit for rebounding from this tragedy and turning a
horrible nightmare into potentially a piece of hope.
Speaker 2 (15:08):
For some others.
Speaker 1 (15:10):
So congratulations on all your success and we're going to
we're going to continue to try and get the word
out and and help you guys continue to grow and
hopefully we'll be talking soon about the continued work that
the prayers from Maria Foundation and Megan McNamara.
Speaker 2 (15:26):
Thank you for joining.
Speaker 1 (15:26):
Us and this has been iHeartRadio CEOs. You should know
today's show is produced by Bob COATESID.
Speaker 2 (15:33):
I'm Keith Hotchkiss. We'll see you next time.
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