The Ride: Getting Started on Fundraising!

Susan Horst

I met with Susan Horst yesterday at Soul Food in Redmond to walk through the specifics of my fundraising campaign for the Ride.  Susan is the JDRF NW Ride Event Manager.  She is a joy to be around and an absolute bundle of energy!   

I showed Susan the Microsoft Access project file I've been putting together listing potential donors and planned fundraising tasks.  She made a couple of suggestions, for example, to create some additional categories for my donor file.  My immediate assignment from Susan is to plan where I estimate the $4,000 in donations for my pledge will come from.  That's what I started in the Access file, but now that's been refined with Susan's help.  

A New Campaign! The JDRF Ride for the Cure 2013!

I'm back to blogging here again, talking about my life with Type 1 Diabetes!

Now, the focus is a new goal:  In September, I'm doing a century bike ride with the JDRF Ride to Cure Diabetes.  I'll be participating with upwards of 30 fellow Northwest riders, nearly each one of us working toward bringing in $4,000 in donations!

I started this blog page mid-decade to raise money for JDRF through Blogathon.  At that point, I blogged nonstop for 24 hours, twice an hour, and brought in a few hundred dollars.  That was fun, but this is a much greater undertaking, and I'm going to need a lot of help.

I'll be posting about my progress as well as that of my fellow riders and teammates.  Please subscribe and join us for the daily adventure!

Etiquette and Type 1 Diabetes: A note to parents of T1's!

I was at a kickoff party recently for the JDRF's Ride to Cure Diabetes.  The party was attended by long-term adult T1's as well as parents and relatives of T1's who participate in the Rides.

I want to say something to parents of T1s about approaching adult T1s and asking them about their health.  In a word, "Don't"!

There is nothing worse for an adult with long-term Type 1 Diabetes than to be approached by a parent of a younger diabetic and being quizzed about how our health is doing (e.g. "how are the peripheries?").   The agenda of these parents is clear:  they want to "estimate" how their kid is going to be doing is 25 years.   This should be considered a breach on etiquette.  The last thing I want to do (especially at a party!) is talk about whether I've got peripheral neuropathy (or not) and how my eyes are doing and the data on my A1c's.   The fact that I'm in excellent health after 25 years says nothing about how your kid is going to be doing in a couple of decades.  That depends on their physiology and how well they take care of themselves.  It has no relationship to me.

I avoid parents of T1's like the plague for this very reason.  Please, learn some etiquette!  You wouldn't walk up to somebody randomly at a party and start talking to them about the results of their last colonoscopy, for example.  Don't do this sort of thing to me either!  I am not here to reassure you.  Please, give me a break!

Ride to Cure Diabetes?

I was just reading about the JDRF's Ride to Cure Diabetes.  I think I might like to do that.  I would have to get past that block of asking people to give me donations for the Ride, but I like the idea of it.  

http://ride.jdrf.org/index.cfm?page_id=109377