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Family with WNY roots sells bracelets for Orlando

Posted at 5:15 PM, Jun 16, 2016
and last updated 2016-06-16 17:15:44-04

A Western New York native and her family are working to share a message of love and acceptance while raising money to help the Orlando shooting victims.

Becky Proudfit grew up in the Town of Tonawanda. She holds a diploma from Kenmore East High School and is a proud alumni of the University of Buffalo, but her career with Disney has taken her and her family all across the U.S., including to Orlando.

That's why Proudfit and her family, who now live in Phoenix, Arizona, felt particularly moved by the mass shooting that claimed the lives of 49 innocent people at an Orlando nightclub. Proudfit said she and her husband watched the news coverage of the tragedy with her kids, and saw an opportunity for a lesson.
 
"They were horrified and sad and scared, so we explained to them that they could do something about it, that they didn't have to just be afraid," Proudfit said. "They didn't have to just sit there and be helpless."
 
The four Proudfit kids -- 11-year-old Weston, 9-year-old Jameson, 7-year-old Lucy, and 3-year-old Caroline -- came up with the idea to create bracelets and sell them to raise money for a blood bank in Orlando. The bright-multicolored bracelets have a simple message embossed on them, "LOVE one another."

The family ordered 600 bracelets and is selling them at $10 a piece. They're donating all of the money they make to the blood bank, OneBlood, and hope to be able to sell all of the bracelets and donate $6,000.

So far, the family has made $3850 in sales and has shipped bracelets to 23 states They say a quarter of all of their sales have been to Western New Yorkers.

 

If you are interested in purchasing a bracelet or helping the Proudfit family's cause, visit loveoneanotherproject.com.