Happy June! I have TWO very exciting opportunities to announce today – both have to do with my JDRF Ride – please read on and find out how you can have some fun and win some cool things!

The first one is pretty amazing: Imagine if the President and CEO of the most powerful and successful diabetes research non-profit in the world wanted to talk to you and only you about your life with diabetes, your questions about treatments and a cure and where we are and should be going with that? That’s just what I’m raffling off this month!

 JDRF CEO Jeffrey Brewer will have a one-on-one half hour phone conversation with the winner of this raffle. You can ask him about new research, share with him your thoughts and goals and hear the true inside information on where we are at.

All you have to do is donate $25 (or more! More is always accepted!) to my JDRF Ride to Cure Effort (link at the end of this). That’s IT! Anyone who makes that donation will be entered to win. I’ll draw at the beginning of July, and then the winner will get their time with Jeffrey Brewer.

Because I’m a long-time active volunteer at JDRF, I get to talk to a lot of smart, powerful and in-the-know people. It helps me learn. It helps me understand. And it gives me a chance to share with them my dreams. Here’s your chance! So click on TODAY, make your donation and then wait to hear. YOU Could be the winner of this way cool raffle. (And thank you, Jeffrey for agreeing to do this! When I asked him I thought “he’s going to think I am out of my mind.” I asked him to agree to a 15 minute call — he upped it to a half hour. Awesome!

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The Second opportunity is one that involves kids, fun, recognition and more!I’m calling it “Turn Lemons to Islets.” Here’s the deal: It’s summer. Kid are looking for something fun to do; interesting ways to fill their day.

So I’m asking that you help your kids (with Type 1 or not! Anyone can do this), hold a lemonade stand to raise funds to donate to my ride. It’s simple: pick a good spot. Make some cute signs. Put up a table, mix some lemonade (or whatever you like!) and use those cute smiles to sell!

I’m calling it “Turn Lemons to Islets” because our goal in curing Type One diabetes is to find a way to help a person with diabetes have islet cells that produce insulin again. When my kids were little, they came up with the idea of calling our walk team “Got Islets?” They liked it not just because it was clever, but because it made people ask “What does that mean?” and opened the door for them to explain Type 1 diabetes to someone. If you choose to call your stand “Turn Lemons to Islets,” you will have a chance to “market’ our dream as well. (Plus if their friends help out, they’ll teach their friends, which is always a bonus. Our kids need friends who “get it.”)

When you have the lemonade stand, I ask you to do a few things. First, take a photo and send it to me so I can share and celebrate each stand (and when you give me permission, I’ll work on having your local paper run the photo and a small story!) Second, donate your stand earnings to my ride. You can do that via the ride site or snail mail. Message me if you need help with that.

 

Here is my ride link to donate to win the talk with Jeffrey OR your lemonade funds raised or both:

http://www2.jdrf.org/site/TR/Ride/JDRFNationalRides?px=1267496&pg=personal&fr_id=3428