“Be the reason someone believes in the goodness of people.” – Karen Salmansohn

Today Emily and I embarked on a mission for one of our CORE families in hopes of finding a way to connect them with Peyton Manning. If you didn’t see my Facebook post, I will give you a little back story. I am the Executive Director of a nonprofit organization called CORE (Children of Restaurant Employees in case you aren’t familiar). The mother of one of our 2016 families reached out to us today with a request. Her husband was diagnosed with cancer almost a year ago and, sadly, the cancer has spread and is now pressing on his heart. She fears he doesn’t have much time and wanted to do something for him. Her husband is a huge Peyton Manning fan and she wanted to see if we had any resources to get in touch with him.

That’s all I needed to hear…Being a HUGE Peyton Manning fan myself there was no other option, we had to find him and he had to get in touch with this family in some way.

I went straight to my Facebook network and shared the following post: “Dear my beloved network,
Does anyone I know have a personal connection with Peyton Manning (other than our love for him) or know someone that does? We have a CORE father that doesn’t have much time left and his wife has reached out with a special request. I’m thinking a video from Peyton to him would be AWESOME! He has the most beautiful 2-year-old daughter and my heart is breaking.
Please feel free to share this post. Thank you in advance!”

After sharing that it was shared 35 times! Yep, read that right, THIRTY-FIVE TIMES! That may not be a lot to a celebrity, but for little ol’ me in less than a day’s work, I was pumped! Not only was it shared over and over and over again by friends, their friends, friends of their friends, I also received numerous calls, texts, and messages from folks letting me know they had someone that may know someone that knows him; that they have a connection with him; that they had reached out and will get back to me. I called any and everyone I could think of that may know a way to reach him or have a connection with him. This Peyton Manning hunt was ON!

Shoot, 5 degrees of Kevin Bacon? More like 5 degrees of Peyton Manning!

At the end of the day, it was the man’s wife that got in touch with Peyton’s assistant and Peyton Manning is calling her husband tomorrow 🙂 What a beautiful woman! In the midst of what is most likely the hardest time of her life, she did whatever she could to make her husband’s final days mean something, to put a smile on his face.

What did I learn from this other than the fact that Peyton Manning is 150% the gentleman I thought he was? I learned SO much more! In our search for Peyton Manning (yes, I keep typing out his whole name because it makes me HAPPY) I was reminded about the good in people. It’s been a hell of a 6 months around the world (or more), I’m sure we can all agree, and sometimes I think I forget that we all have so much love and good in our hearts.

Today I was reminded that the friends I have met along this journey so far are top notch! Not only that, THEIR friends are also top notch! During the busy first week back after the holidays, so many stopped what they were doing to help us help a wife grant her husband’s dying wish. I know we are all swamped with emails, cleaning, meetings, calls, appointments, etc., and today I saw everyone take a few moments out of their busy lives to help support a total stranger. Ugh, brings me to tears just typing this.

In my search for Peyton Manning I found love and compassion and empathy! That, my friends, may be better than finding him at all! (Although, how dang cool is it that Peyton is going to call this man tomorrow!?!?!?) Thanks to all of you that are the reason I believe in the goodness of people ❤ It’s truly AMAZING what can happen when we all put our good energy and hearts together! I have no doubt that all the love we put out into the universe today helped to make this happen. Love trumps hate! 😉