Amanda’s Army Walks for its Fourth Time to Cure Her Diabetes

July 27, 2009 - PRLog -- New Windsor, New York:  Seven year old Amanda on behalf of the entire  Amanda’s Army is calling on her Hudson Valley Community to walk with her to cure not only her diabetes but that of the other millions of children that she shares this fight with.  We will be walking at Chadwick Lake Park, Newburgh, NY on September 27, 2009.

“For its fourth time Amanda’s Army is walking to raise the desperately needed funding to find a cure.  This year is going to be tough to reach our fundraising goal,” said Amanda’s parents.  “Times are difficult and we totally understand that everyone is struggling but unfortunately, diabetes does not understand lay-offs, recession and cutbacks. Diabetes is still part of Amanda’s life 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. It does not take breaks for financial crisis.”

If you have never met Amanda, she turned 7 in January, is a beautiful little girl who loves to play with her friends, participate in gymnastics and draw lovely pictures but she is also a child who experiences low blood sugars and high blood sugars often. The lows make her nauseous, shaky and tired. The highs make her irritable, thirsty and lethargic. This is her life on a daily basis. Constantly doing finger sticks (at least 10 times a day), counting carbs, regulating her insulin pump, and all of the other stuff that comes with living with diabetes.  

Where does the money Amanda’s Army raise all go?  It is going to research. The Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation (JDRF) has made tremendous strides in the research areas of:

1) Autoimmunity: Stopping or reversing the immune system response that causes diabetes the attack on insulin-secreting cells in the pancreas. $48.5 million during FY 2008

2) Complications: Understanding how diabetes causes complications, and developing drugs, treatments, and therapies to stop that process, or reverse the impact of the different types of individual complications. $28.9 million during FY 2008

3) Replacement: Replacing cells killed off by diabetes with functioning ones from a donor -- similar to a heart or kidney transplant -- including increasing the supply of cells that can be transplanted. $42.8 million during FY 2008


4) Regeneration: Regenerating insulin-producing cells in people who have diabetes (as opposed to transplanting cells from organ donors or other sources). $21 million during FY 2008.


5) Metabolic Control: Demonstrating that advanced monitoring tools might significantly improve the health of people with diabetes, and developing technologies that link insulin pumps and continuous glucose monitors. $15.2 million during FY 2008

Remember 85% of every dollar that JDRF gets goes to research to find a cure for diabetes.

So now, of course, we are asking for your help again and inviting you to walk with us this year on Sunday, September 27 at 1pm (registration at noon) at Chadwick Lake Park in Newburgh. The park is so much fun. We had a really good time there last year even though it rained.

Three ways you can help make a difference in Amanda’s life:

1)   You can join Amanda's Army online by clicking on the link http://walk.jdrf.org/walker.cfm?id=87342625 and walk with us on Sept. 27.   If you walk with us, please let us know so that we can get an Amanda’s Army shirt for you. If you join Amanda's Army you can set up your own fundraising page and then send emails to all your friends and family to ask them for donations. Just click "yes" to Walk Central when joining the team.

2)   You can mail a tax-deductible donation made payable to JDRF and mail to: Amanda’s Army, C/o K2 Global Communications LLC, PO Box-418, Central Valley, NY 10917.

3)                 You can make a tax-deductible donation online at the link http://walk.jdrf.org/walker.cfm?id=87342625.

The Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation (JDRF) International is the leader in setting the agenda for type 1 diabetes research worldwide, and is the world's largest charitable funder and advocate of type 1 diabetes research. The mission of JDRF is to find a cure for diabetes and its complications through the support of research. Type 1 diabetes is a disease which strikes children and adults suddenly, but lasts a lifetime. It requires multiple injections of insulin daily or a continuous infusion of insulin through a pump. Insulin, however, is not a cure for diabetes, nor does it prevent its eventual and devastating complications that may include kidney failure, blindness, heart disease, stroke, amputation, and pregnancy complications.

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Help us reach our goal of raising $105 million.

Type 1, or juvenile, diabetes, is a devastating disease that affects millions of peoplea large and growing percentage of them children.