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Giving Thanks by Giving Back -Charitable Giving in 2017

Brilliant Bodywork is a small, family owned business. Because we are a small, family owned business being part of the local community is really important to us. We strive to make an impact on our local community and residents by donating our time, talents, and monetary gifts to different charities and causes in our region and beyond. Stephanie Andresen-Stevens is the co-owner of Brilliant Bodywork with her husband Adam Stevens. For Stephanie giving back has always been a strong motivator for her. She recently received a Jefferson Award for all of her charitable efforts. However, giving back to her community goes much deeper than just helping out.

As a young girl Stephanie was diagnosed with a rare genetic disease known as Ehler's Danlos Syndrome. Those living with Ehler's Danlos have hyper flexible joints that can hyper extend or dislocate at any moment. When Stephanie was a child she started receiving treatments at the Shriner's Hospital for Children in the Twin Cities. She received all of her treatments free of charge. She received treatments from early childhood through her mid-twenties at no cost to her or her family. Stephanie feels that even though they weren't asked to pay back the treatment costs, she could pay it forward, and that's the mentality Stephanie has had as she moves through her life. This is also the mentality that Stephanie has brought into her business, she motivates all of us here to do what we can to serve our community and give back what we can.

Over the past 12 months Brilliant Bodywork has been involved with many different charitable events and opportunities. Let's take a look back at 2017 charitable efforts.

We are still so excited that Stephanie received a Jefferson Award. The goal of this award is to celebrate the great achievements of selflessness and service individuals have in their community, while encouraging others to join in and make an impact where they can. If you want to learn more about the Jefferson Award that Stephanie was honored with you can follow this link to see her WXOW interview, or check out our blog post about it below.

News interview-

http://www.wxow.com/story/35700617/2017/06/Monday/jefferson-award-winner-volunteers-despite-living-with-rare-genetic-disease

Blog post-

http://stephanieandresen.wixsite.com/brilliantbodyblog/single-post/2017/06/23/Congrats-Stephanie-Jefferson-Awards-Foundation-Recipient

Over the past year we have had the opportunity to give back to our community and beyond through programs like the United Way, Samaritan's Purse, New Leash on Life, Steppin' Out in Pink and more.

As mentioned above, the Shriner's Children's Hospital in the Twin Cities is a place that is very special to Stephanie. Her and her husband make a yearly monetary donation to the Shriner's hospital, as well as Stephanie being the chair for the Advisory Committee for Alumni. This committee works to reach out to Shriner's patient alumni to get them involved in the hospital. Stephanie also has donated her time at the hospital as Elsa the ice queen from the Frozen series. She dresses up as Elsa and visits the children. This year we also did a teddy bear drive at the Spa for the children at the Shriner's hospital. This was a huge success with 100's of stuffed friends being donated and brought to the spa.

We also hosted our 3rd annual school supply drive for the United Way to distribute to local school children in need. The school supply drive is always a big success at the spa. We set it up as a contest, for every item our clients bring in they get an entry to win a prize at the end of the drive. We get tons of school supplies for kids in need and our clients get to feel good about their donation while getting a chance to win a spa service.

We also hosted our 2nd annual Operation Christmas Child box packing party. We hosted our friends and clients after hours at the spa to help us prepare and stuff boxes full of hygiene items, toys, clothes and more for children all over the world who otherwise would go without for Christmas.

We've also been involved with a few other service opportunities like hosting Homecoming for Haven, she put together a dance and party for Haven Dulek, a Minnesota high school girl who was denied attending her own schools homecoming due to a medical condition. Sponsoring the Miss La Crosse/Oktoberfest Pageant and honoring her late grandmothers with the Spirit of Community Scholarship Fund awarded to one of the the pageant contestants who meets the criteria. Helping to raise scholarship money for the Miss Onalaska Pageant by donating time and an auction item to the Miss Onalaska Style Show Fundraiser.

Along with donating our time and talents to various charities and organizations, Brilliant Bodywork offers a program for clients who are or have gone through treatments for any type of cancer. This is called the Wings of Hope Program and it allows these clients to receive beneficial treatments on a sliding scale, whatever the client can pay at the time of service, even if it's only a few dollars.

We believe in giving thanks to our community by giving back as best we can. We are ready to head into the new year by continuing to pay it forward.