January 26, 2002 Newsletter

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Inaugural Fundraiser a Huge Sucess

I have kept this article from the year 2002 on our website, because it demonstrates the grass roots approach that we have used to grow our organization.

Our culture tends to value athletes and celebrities more than brain surgeons and medical researchers.
So how can we put that trend to work for us?
Easy. Get an MVP quarterback to donate his time and treasures, add to that a group of hard working volunteers, and you have a recipe for success.
Kurt Warner, the St. Louis Rams quarterback, agreed to personalize an autographed Jersey and Football for our first ever fundraiser. In addition, three other cash prizes were offered. Volunteers sold chances for each.
Ticket Sales
We sold over 4,900 worth of tickets!!! But that s not the end, it’s only the beginning!! In the process of selling the tickets, we also were able to reach hundreds of people about our cause. Some of these people are in the medical community, and were not even aware of this disease.
As a result of our efforts, five people have agreed to help us with our next event!!
Future Events
Personally, I tend to be very biased towards sporting events. I am working with local athletes (and their charities) to help our cause. I plan to have a athlete speak at our church on how faith has shaped his career, followed by a dinner and an auction.

Seven things I can Do

Nathan draws the winnig name from the fundraiser

1. Pray for Success
2. Donate my Talents
2. Educate Myself
4. Educate Other's
5. Ask Others for Help
6. Donate to the Foundation
7. Write your Congressional representative
We all want those affected by Atypical HUS to live as close to normal lives as possible Dialysis, transplants and everything that goes with this disease can be overwhelming. We need a better treatment, or a cure.
So far, we have two groups of researchers throughout the world who are leading the way on research, An Italian group led by Dr. Remuzzi, and a Swedish Group with a researcher named Diana Karpman. I talked to Diana, one of the actual researchers from Sweden. She felt that the most important factors was not going to be “millions and millions of dollars.” Instead, it will take dedicated, hard working researchers who have a steady funding source.
Before we can get serious about research, we need to raise some serious money.
If we can raise 50,000 in our first year, we will attempt to obtain matching grants from the National Kidney foundation and the National Institute of Health.
With 100,000 in our bank account, we will then put out proposal requests in the Kidney publications and Medical research journals. It will be a competitive process, and whoever has the best research proposal will win all of the money.

AND THE WINNERS ARE:

The winners of our first Fundraiser were:

1st Prize Steve Nehrkorn Kurt Warner Jersey
2nd Prize Emily Sagitto Kurt Warner Football
3rd Prize Holly Buck
4th Prize Charlie Johnson
5th Prize Libby Moore

Research Update