Sugar Bakeshop

Thanks to our amazing sponsors for January’s Climate Cart- Sugar Bakeshop, KUDU Coffee Roasters, and Home Team BBQ of Charleston, SC. The teachers and staff loved their sweet treats and coffee yesterday! We are grateful for our community of local businesses that rally around to support our schools!

In our 2020 yearly recap post, we said that “with every setback, an even stronger comeback is right around the corner”. The year 2021 was the year of the comeback, and though it brought its challenge, it brought even more incredible blessings to our Swirls family. We reflect back on the positives and lights of 2021 that brought us closer in spirit and even more thankful and appreciative for our family, our traditions, and for Swirls Around the World.

Swirls was able to continue his travels around the world (safely) and to special places, including Greece, Iceland, Israel, and of course our beloved Boston sports games! And we could make a whole separate slideshow of pictures from the amazing Katie Histing and her travels with Swirls! 🌀

He also provided extra Swirls strength to our Warriors, who sported their Swirls bracelets while undergoing treatment, overcoming adversity, and celebrating milestones.

We connected with the most amazing warriors and their families, and continued to send out Swirls bracelets and Swirls Care Packages to our warriors.

In May, we granted our Matthew “Swirls” Cirelli Memorial Scholarship to two outstanding Medford High School Seniors: Dawn Eisnor & Brianna Leccese.

We continued our quarterly donations to MGH’s Pediatric Hematology/Oncology clinic and got to see the wonderful Elyse. Thank you Elyse for making this possible and sharing Matthew’s legacy with MGH warriors.

A special thank you to the team at We Finish Together for sending us special medals and the Raising Cane's team for providing meal cards and swag to include in our MGH donation packages.

We were able to plan and team up with incredible organizations and companies to make some special Swirls Days possible for our warriors!

These days included trips to:
* Urban Air Adventure Park and the The Dallas World Aquarium for Treagin The Warrior and Family (thank you to Sal & Urban Air Worth) and Kyle & the Dallas Aquarium for making these days possible).

We helped celebrate the birthdays of our warriors, and though we couldn’t be there in person for the celebrations, we teamed up with amazing bakeries to help make the day extra special for our warrior families! The icing on the cake!

These celebrations included:
* Superhero Dalton’s D-Feet Cancer The Dalton Fox Foundation12th birthday (thank you to Carrie's Cakes & Confections/Staz-a-Licious for the Super D cake!
* Sydney’s 7th Birthday (thank you to Cake Monstah, Cupcake Charlie's, and J cakes for the beautiful animal-themed cupcakes!),
* Faith’s 17th Birthday (thank you to Glaze Bakery for the Sunflower cake that radiated sunshine for Faith’s Day!) Fighting For Faith Marie
* Cecelia’s 11th birthday at Build-A-Bear Workshop! Ceci's Crew

We helped celebrate our angel Haley as she graduated from Presbyterian College. Though she was unable to attend her graduation in person, we were honored to team up with Sugar Bakeshop to make Haley’s Celebration extra special. Thank you to the Sugar Bakeshop Andrew Kaczynski for creating a beautiful “Haley Strong” red velvet cake. Our hearts are broken to share that we lost Haley on October 18th, 2021- but her light continues to shine. #HopeFromHaleyHughes Hope From Haley Hughes

We had the honor of participating in sweet Ben’s Celebration of life. Thank you to Nicole and Cake Escape Bakery for creating an incredible Sloth cake #OnBehalfOfBen. We are honored to help continue and share Ben’s Legacy and work to “Be Like Ben” every day.

Our Swirls Days continued with:
* Gladiator Grady’s Swirls Day at the Celtics Vs. Bucks Game. Thank you to the Boston Celtics Shamrock Foundation for helping to make this special day possible for Grady and his amazing family.
* Warrior Celia and her special VIP Preview of Boston’s Dino Safari: A Walk-Thru Adventure Thank you to Lena and Talent Resources for teaming up with Swirls to make this adventure possible. Dino Safari: A Walk-Thru Adventure
* Beautiful Kiara’s special Swirls Day at Selfie WRLD Boston, where Kiara let her true light SHINE, which was followed by a good old Southern comfort meal at Southern Kin Cookhouse Kiara also had a special ride in a lime green Lamborghini and channeled her inner Picasso at Plaster Fun Time marlborough with the Swirls Family!
*Our angel Payton’s night at the Milwaukee Brewers game. Forever an Angel in the Outfield. Thank you Karina & the Milwaukee Brewers Foundation for making this possible. We continue to Pedal For Payton ❤️

And we were finally able to hold Leo’s MVP Day at BattlegroundZ (a day 3 years in the making). We had so much to celebrate on this day- Leo’s 13th Birthday, being 3.5 years NED, his incredible work in football and school (Leo had a straight A report card!), and was a 2021 Academic Achiever Nominee! We are so proud of you Leo and so honored to celebrate you. Thank you to the incredible Sweet Li's, Spinelli's of Lynnfield, & the BattlegroundZ Team for making this day so special and possible. It was so perfect 💛

The Swirls Family was honored to return to CureFest for CureFest for Childhood Cancer where we reunited with our family, friends, and cancer fighting community for a special weekend. Thank you to Dena Sherwood, Mike Gillette, Kristen Alexander, Kyle Stepp and all who made this weekend possible. We are so excited to reunite with our CureFest family again in 2022.

After having to postpone our biggest and most anticipated event of the year in 2020, our Swirls family and friends were back and better than ever for our 3rd Annual Swirls Around the World Pub Crawl. Thank you to our raffle donors, and for Sissy K's, Ned Devines, Hong Kong Boston, Faneuil Hall, and The Wild Rover Boston Ma for hosting us and making this crawl the best one yet. We hope you all are ready to Swirl again in 2022!

Matthew’s hero, Scott Hilt, made the return to Heartbreak Hill and crossed the finish line of the Boston Marathon for the Mass General Marathon Team and in Matthew’s honor and memory. You are incredible Scott!

Thank you to the wonderful Joy Saunders, and the Kendra Scott at Kendra Scott & Kendra Scott for all of their incredible support of Swirls. Joy and the Kendra Scott team organized a special Kendra Cares virtual event for our girls and their moms, as well as a Kendra Scott Giveback Event in December that featured a special Swirls pendant and in-store event! Joy has been such a blessing to our family!

Thank you to all those who held facebook fundraisers, made generous donations and contributions on behalf of Swirls.
A special thank you to:
* Jessica Pajak (Coffee Hope Wine) and Jami Ryba of ONEHOPE Wine. Jessica held our annual “Sipping & Swirling” ONEHOPE wine fundraiser in September, and Jami held a ONEHOPE fundraiser in honor and memory of our hero Ben Dixon.
* Genevieve Criscuolo & Teddie’s Tribe for holding a Clean Beauty Beautycounter Pop-Up on behalf of Swirls. We LOVE our new and clean beauty products! Beautycounter
* Miki, Brenden, & the Butler Family for holding a Pampered Chef Fundraiser on behalf of Swirls- we are loving our new brownie pan. We were so honored to support Brenden in his 3rd Annual Holiday Gift Drive!

Thank you to the Medford High School Class of 1986 35th reunion for making a scratch-ticket basket to raffle off during their reunion this year, with all proceeds benefiting Swirls.

Thank you to Tim O'Connell & Tommy's Place for giving us the honor to connect with families for a stay at the magical Tommy’s Place. And giving us a grand tour!!!

Thank you to Jo Hamel and Caidens Crusaders Inc for donating dolls and Happy Hats to include in our Swirls packages of love, as well as for connecting us with Ozzie’s Kids to provide a donation of toys collected by the staff and students of The Stepping Stone Learning Center in Hingham, MA.

Thank you to Erin Stern and the Camp Casco Team for all of your support of Swirls and for brining Swirls along for your Camp Champions week! And thank you giving us the honor to participate in Camp Casco’s Camp Santa program! We love our Camp Casco Family.

Thank you to the Battle Bulldog - Brynn's Journey and CoreyStrong families for including Swirls in your tribute to warriors for the Battle Brynn Benefit Golf Tournament and the Corey Strong Golf Tournament! Though we could not be there in person, our hearts are so happy and honored knowing that Swirls was there in spirit to support.

A special thank-you to Katie Sharkey Marino & the D team for their continued support and extremely generous donations to all of our fundraisers, and holding their own Facebook fundraisers on behalf of Swirls.

Our Swirling For A Cure Bonfire Campaign- including the names of 225 warriors and angels. Thank you to the families of these heroes for giving us the honor of including their beautiful names. And thank you for all who purchased and send us pictures in your Swirls shirts! It means the world to us. Please continue to send us your beautiful pictures!

We introduced Brodie’s PAWcast featuring one of our Swirls Family pups! Brodie creates custom videos for warriors! He is now taking requests!

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdA_5-Y30EPYcFG9cZP0goC_HNFPJk-mUoa8y7dmzvzBHwi5w/viewform?usp=sf_link

Most importantly, we remember and honor our angels and carry them in our hearts everyday. We continue their legacies and share their stories with the world. They inspire us every day and their families hold a special place in our hearts.

Here’s to Family, Friends, and Faith, to a 2022 filled with endless health and happiness. And a huge cheers to our Swirls friends and family, who make it all possible. Thank you from the bottom of our hearts, for helping us continue Matthews journey. With every Swirls picture we receive, every Facebook fundraiser, every donation and contribution raises awareness and continues Matthew’s mission of paying it forward. We are so honored and blessed.

Wishing our Swirls Family a happy and healthy New Year.

Stay Safe & Swirls Strong.

Love,
The Swirls Around the World Family