Sunday, 7am at Flushing Meadow Park it’s quite cold and extremely windy. Katie, my bf Greg and myself sat huddled in our many layers at the registration booth for the Queens JDRF Walk. I can tell you we were happy to be there, however the coffee wasn’t there yet and neither was the sun. I promised Katie that the forecast promised a sunny warm day. We sat and waited for the sun and walkers to show up.
It was so nice to see how many people came out to volunteer. So many, that there were more than actually needed. We met some wonderful young men from Baruch College who wound up asking Katie and I a lot of questions about being diabetics. Of course we were happy to answer them and thought it was wonderful that they were volunteering, even though Diabetes had not touch their lives.
We had a little fun with Stacey. I wrote her an email telling her that we were waiting for her to come, so we could have our picture taken with Nick Jonas. She was very excited and quite surprised that he was attending the event. I guess she was a little disappointed when she discovered he was only a giant poster. We did in fact take our picture with him and had quite a few laughs.
Stacey brought her whole family. It was great to see her babies. Greg and I had owned three ferrets ourselves years ago and were overjoyed to play with the little guys. I think Greg was smitten with Elvis and had every intention of taking him home, lol.
The walk is always a lot of fun. This year was the best one for me though because I was there with two of my fellow ACT1’s. We wore our pins and our diabetes “bling”. I love that we have a diabetes ribbon. I just hate what it looks like, so we jazzed it up a bit.
T-shirts at the walks are always quite creative and some are touching, others inspiring and sometimes sad. I met a group of young ladies who were wearing very cool shirts. Sometimes diabetes makes kids and teens feel isolated. I highly doubt this was the case for Kaitlyn. Her “Krew” were supportive and seemed psyched to be there for their friend. It was really a great thing to see. I told her that we were there for her when she reached adulthood. However I hoped maybe, with the money we were raising we wouldn’t need to be.
The sun truly did come out Sunday. However the warmth came from inside our hearts that day. We were so lucky to work at the info booth. We met some truly wonderful ACT1’s. So many were thrilled to find out that there was a resource out there for them. We even met a few Type 1’s who didn’t know any other adult diabetics. One lady had never met a diabetic in the 20 years since her diagnosis. It really made us feel like all this work were putting in was worth it.
We had a sample on our info table of the fabulous backpack filled with all sorts of paraphernalia and a cute teddy bear who sported a medic alert bracelet. Adults and children alike wanted to take him home. We explained that he was available to recently diagnosed children and all they had to do was call JDRF to receive one of their own.
JDRF is a wonderful foundation that puts a lot of money into research and we were happy to support them. I want to thank all the people who donated under my name this year, it means a lot. I want to thank Pam and Kelly from JDRF for their support and kindness.
JDRF is a wonderful foundation that puts a lot of money into research and we were happy to support them. I want to thank all the people
Looks like a great day! Glad you all could get together and enjoy the sun while raising money for our cause!
It really was a great day!! I felt like the walk was a bit crowded but that’s ok because it means there were that many people to support all of us PWD. And you should have seen the crowds around the ferrets … I thought I was going to have to save Joe at one point from all the people!! lol Great pics
(oh yeah … you did get me with Nick Jonas hehe)
This is such an awesome post! You were very kind to omit my shivering and whining in the wee hours of the morning
It was definitely so incredible to connect with those ACT1′s. And you did an amazing job making our ACT1 bling!!
Great post Tina! At least the weather cooperated as the day progressed. Wish I could have been there!
You guys look wonderful. I’m sorry I wasn’t there for you. Keep up the terrific work; you’re great.