Hogan Dominy lived but 16 days, but they were 16 unforgettable days that changed the life of his parents forever.

Now Kip Dominy has founded a new website, remembertheone.org, to help “the ones” be remembered.

The new website is not about Hogan. In fact, Kip removed his son’s story from the home page of the beta version of the site because he did not want people to believe that the site was all about Hogan. But Hogan’s short life was certainly the inspiration.

Kip and Angie Dominy of Statham learned in the fall of 2009 that their child would be a boy. But the same day they learned the sec, they also learned there were some problems. After an anxious weekend where they tried to stay busy to keep from worrying, they learned that Hogan had trisomy 18. They were told that there was not much chance that their son would be born alive.

Hogan was born alive, April 2, 2010, on Good Friday. He weighed 3 pounds, 3 ounces. He died on April 18th.

During Hogan’s life, Dominy started a blog. He was stunned at the reaction to it.

“It was therapy for me,” he said. “When people read it, they saw it in different ways. Their faith greew, and God used it to change lots of lives.”

Dominy also used Facebook to report Hogan’s progress. He had 600 Facebook friends when he started, and 2,000 within a week.

“I got messages from people I didn’t know,” he said. “Around town people would come up to me. Everywhere I sent in the hospital, people were always asking, “How is Hogan doing today?’ It went all over th world, and people are still reading the blog.”

Dominy talked about the experience in a way that perhaps can only be understood only by other parent’s of the “ones”.

He said, “that was the hardest thing I have ever gone through, and the best, in a weird way. It drew me closer to God.”

The experience inspired him to create a website where the other “ones” could be followed.

“This is a website for the ones,” he said. “We were one in 5,000 with trisomy 18. Now I know a lot of other statistics.”

Though patient-support websites already exist, such as Caring Bridge and Care Pages, Dominy envisioned something different. So he invested money with two different website developers to create remembertheone.org. It is just now rolling out.

Dominy wanted a site that incorporated social networking sites. he wanted a site that had a calendar funtion. For example, a person could sign on to follow journey and ask to be notified of significant events posted by the bloggeron a calendar, such as significant medical procedurres or birthdays.

“You may ask me to pray for your mother, and I might forget,” Dominy said. “but the calendar wiill send a text to my phone on the day she is having surgery, for example.”

Dominy recently founded a 501(c)3 organization. He has recruited a board of directors. They have scheduled a celebrity golf tournament April 12th at the Georgia Club. Brad Johnson, D.J. Shockley, David Greene, and Matt Stinchcomb are among those committed to play.

Aside from funding the website, the organization needs to pay for marketing costs to help spread the word.

Users pay nothing, but Dominy can envision that Remember the One may have to hire a staff person in the near future. He would like to create a mobile application.

“I have heard that could cost $50,000, unless someone wants to make an in-kind donation,” said Dominy.

The site is up and running, and people can sign on to create a journey or to follow a journey.

http://www.oconeeenterprise.com/articles/2012/04/04/news/doc4f7c731ff15e0575904660.txt

By: Blake Giles (Oconee Enterprise) April 4th, 2012 Edition

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Tagged: trisomy 18, remembertheoneorg, remember the one, nonprofits, 501c3