8:05 PM
What an exciting week for me personally and the entire Brady Family! As most of you know, we were asked to build an Extreme Makeover Home. From agreeing to doing it four weeks ago to planning, organizing and informing the home owners last Tuesday, to tearing down their old house last Thursday and completing a new house 85 hours later and turning the keys over to them on Tuesday, I can't tell you how much fun, community spirit and excitement we were able to enjoy.
It was a great opportunity to give back to the community and to work shoulder to shoulder with more than 2,500 volunteers who were so giving of their time and efforts. I can also tell you that not one person didn't thank us for the opportunity to be involved. Frankly, I think that everyone involved got more out of it personally than they put into it. I tell you this because I encourage you to volunteer for community service events like this in the future and promise that you will find it as rewarding as my family and I did.
Politically, it was an exciting and productive week too. I was able to spend time over the last week continuing to take our message to voters of Illinois. I had an opportunity to visit with a good group of business leaders in Peoria and the Quad Cities including the CEO of John Deere. We were also able to fit in a fundraiser at the Peoria Chiefs game and a great meeting with Jim Owens, the CEO of Caterpillar.
After the "Move that Bus!" for the Extreme Home Makeover, we took off for the northern area of the state, meeting with a great group of business leaders at a lunch hosted by Harry and Mark Seigle, ending the day with 42d Ward Republicans at their annual boat cruise on the Chicago River.
We had a very informative meeting with insurance executives, specifically dealing with the area of workers compensation, as well as various business men and women throughout Lake, Cook and DuPage counties. We stopped by Kane County Thursday to congratulate Jerry Rich on a wonderful Solheim Cup golf tournament which brought thousands of people to Sugar Grove and ended the day with a good group of Republican leaders in Plainfield Township in Will County.
Friday I did a couple of morning radio show interviews about the lack of leadership from Governor Quinn on the U of I Board and his failure on campaign contribution limits. And, lastly Friday, we welcomed Jaime Elich to the Brady Team as our chief of Chicago media relations. She joins a team of senior campaign directors and more than 120 dedicated volunteer political coordinators throughout Illinois. We capped the week on Saturday with a great picnic with more than 300 Republicans from four south suburban townships in Cook County and an interview on WVON Sunday with Paul Lisnek.
I look forward to seeing you soon on our campaign trail, and thanks to all who are attending the many events on our behalf that I am not able to personally attend.
