For those of you who do not know, Chili’s will be donating all of their profits on September 24th to St. Jude’s hospital to research brain tumors in children.  Additionally, if you buy a $25 gift card, $1 will be donated to St. Judes.  I recommend everyone go out and buy a gift card and have lunch at Chili’s on the 24th to maximize their donation.  The children can definitely use the money.

(As of April 7th, Emily has reached $3500 in donations.  This more than exceeds her $1000 goal from four months ago.  Keep up the good work.) 

Please visit Emily’s Arthritis Walk Donation Page.

I do not normally request donations from people, but Emily is a special case, and yes I am a bit biased.  Emily is 14 years old and suffers from Juvenile Rheumatoid Arthritis and has so since she was born.  And though she suffers from pain and swelling and undergoes long periods of treatment on a frequent basis, this young gal lives a full and active life including being one of the Arthritis Foundations spokesperson.  She and I even competed against each other one night last year during a competitive round of bowling.  If you ever had a chance to sit down with her and talk about the medical science behind JRA and arthritis in general, you would be convinced you were talking to a pre-med student. 

Unfortunately, she has learned all of this information by suffering from the disease.  The annual Arthritis Walk is one of many events during the year that the Arthritis Foundation uses to bring in donantions to help find a cure.  During the walk, people with arthritis (or teams supporting someone with arthritis) spend the day walking at various events around the nation during the month of May not only in order to raise funds to find a cure but also as a sign of defiance against their illness.  This is why our donations are so important.

I can continue to search for the words to describe Emily to you and help you learn more about her, but let me let her do the talking.  The link below is a video summary from the Juvenile Arthritis town hall meeting held in Atlanta in July this year.  Emily is one of the speakers, followed by US Senator Johnny Isakson.  When the page loads, on the lower left-hand side of the screen you will find a drop-down box with Emily’s name listed.  You can use this option to jump quickly to her 5-minute speech, or you can take the time to listen to the whole presentation.  In either case, knowledge of JRA and arthritis in general is important for everyone, so please spend a moment, visit Emily’s site (link at the top of the page) and view her speech below.  She has set a goal of $1000, and has currently raised $730.  Our efforts here can help her raise the additional $270.  Thank you all for your time on this matter.

Video:  Adventures in Atlanta, 2006