Ray Voelker

Life is full of curveballs, that's what makes it worth it. My wife and I have always been the type of people to face a propblem head on and make the best of anything situation we find ourselves in. That being said we were not ready for what life was about to throw us on a cold February night five years ago.
  My wife had just started her 28th week of pregnancy and everything was going great. We were starting to plan out our little girls nursery and we ordered the crib on Monday. Towards the end of the week Taylor (my wife) was not feeling well so we went to the hospital to see what was going on.
  Sure enough, our daughter did not want to wait until April to make her appearance. Poppy Rae Voelker came into this world at 1:55am on February 3rd, 2018 weighing in at 3lbs 1oz and 16inches long.
She was so small and at first I wasn't sure if she was ok. But a few second went by and she moved and started to cried. The team of doctors grabbed her can started taking care of her immediately. We were lucky from a medical standpoint she looked good, was just small and had to work on her breathing.
 We spent 51 days in Hillcrest's NICU and we can't say enough about the care Poppy received from their staff and how well they treated Taylor and myself.
  The March of Dimes supports lifesaving research, and Poppy benefitted from some of those treatments they funded. Raising money for this walk is just one way we can give back to what they have done for our daughter at Hillcrest. Please join Poppy's Posse and walk and raise funds with us on May 21, 2023, or if you aren't able to walk with us, please make a donation to our team to help us meet and hopefully exceed our goal.  We have raised over $12,000 as a team in our first two walks and we are hoping to continue the trend this year. Please help us say thank you to the March of Dimes..