When it comes to helping out the homies, I must help. And when local good guy and DTSJ advocate, Jake McCluskey, tapped my shoulder with a problem, we instantly took action on some solutions. The problem was that my friend Jake had some oral care issues that had gone too far, and had become dangerous and painful. So with our two brains and connections, we hit the ground running with a cool plan to include community participation with ‘Make Jake Smile’.

Considering professional dental work is not very affordable, and us working class folks don’t necessarily always have access to these additional benefits, we knew that we could turn to the community for assistance. Being a local fitness hero and all around good guy, Jake had already had several people approach him with offers of support, but Jake being who he is, was not interested in any ‘hand-outs’. So we put together a really cool event for Make Jake Smile, and we raised the funds by way of ticket sales, limited edition t-shirt sales, and a large auction of items and services that had been donated to the Make Jake Smile efforts.

In the end, because we put our minds together, leveraged the awesome folks we know, and did things with pure intentions to help someone who has helped so many others, it all worked and Jake got his new smile. We raised well over $15k, found a reasonable dentist, and helped Jake get the work he so badly needed. We also raised enough to assist in providing what Jake needed to take the time off work and still sustain. I’m very proud of Make Jake Smile and even more happy to have a friend like Jake in my life. Flexing what I know for good….thats fulfilling.

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