Some of the readers here may remember my queries about
        the disease called Idiopathic Pulmonary Hemosiderosis (IPH)
        (Bleeding in the lungs) that my 2 year old grandson is afflicted with.
        About the the only thing I have found out is that the disease is
        very rare. My grandson (Eric), has been in and out of the
        hospital what seems like half of his 2 years. One problem
        that he has is his eating habits. Basically, he does not
        want to eat. He will take cooking.net">food in his mouth, but then spit
        it out. He has had all the tests for this problem with
        negative results. So, the doctors decided to feed him
        intraveneously. He had this "thingy"(sorry, I don't know the
        medical term for this thing but it is a direct connection to
        his heart) installed under his skin on his chest.
        This is used for feeding him a special liquid mixture of fats,
        carbos, and a couple of other nutrients, as well as for taking
        {*filter*} sample(the normal areas for drawing {*filter*} are kinda useless
        now). Well, problems evolved from this. He developed an infection
        in the area of this "thingy".  Now they have removed it.  I
        should digress and say he had the feeding tube directly into
        the stomache first. Many problems happened with that also and they
        had to remove it.

        It seems like whatever could happen to the little guy will.
        I'll say one thing, he has a hell of a fighting spirit in him!
        (I guess the steroids they are giving him could do that!!!)

        Anyway, the real reason I am posting is that Eric's medical insurance
        will run out in November after paying out probably around $1 million
        since birth. My daughter and son-in-law cannot find another carrier
        to pick up Eric. My wife came up with the idea of a fund raiser.
        We thought about contacting our local professional sporting teams
        and solicit autographed sporting gear (jerseys, shoes, etc.) for
        either an auction or raffle but really don't know how to go
        about doing this.

        Has anyone ever been involved with a fund raiser before? Especially
        the planning stages? What problems could we run into?
        I would appreciate any and all information about getting one going.