Getting Ready for the Walk to Cure Diabetes

A Big Day for a Volunteer Mom

by Vickie Oddino

Every year, Emily and her brother head out to the garage to dust off an old Rubbermaid bin. Inside are the leftover balloons, t-shirts, banners and handouts from last year's Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation (JDRF) Walk to Cure Diabetes. It is time to take inventory for this year's walk, which will be on November 4, 2007, at Dodger Stadium. Letters requesting donations went out a couple of weeks ago. Flyers have been distributed at work and at Emily's dance studio, and we have written to every business contact we could think of.

Our walk team is named Emily O's Cheerios, and we have already made calls to our sponsors, Cheerios. Thankfully, Cheerios agreed once again to send a couple of cases of Cheerios cereal, something we can distribute to our team's nearly 80 walkers when they arrive at Dodger Stadium at 8:00 am, still rubbing sleep out of their eyes. It's a nice touch that people have come to expect. Cheerios also has sent us a box of bright yellow t-shirts that simply sport the logo "Cheerios" across the front. These have been one of the more popular items at the entire Los Angeles walk year after year. Everyone knows the Cheerios team – you can see us coming a mile away. And each year, people bombard us with requests for shirts.

We stock up on more balloons and make sure we have plenty of helium. We will adorn everyone on our team with yellow balloons tied to belt buckles, zippers, strollers, or anything else we can find. Of course, blowing up 80 balloons is always a challenge. Actually, tying 80 balloons usually proves to be the most difficult task of the morning.

For the final countdown, reminder emails have been sent asking for donations. Emails have gone out to all walkers, giving them logistical details for walk morning. Luckily, we have enough walkers and have raised enough money that we are awarded our own registration booth, complete with tables, chairs, and a canopy.

As in so many years before, we will repack our Rubbermaid storage box, restocked with supplies, and try to get to bed early. When the alarm rings, it's still dark outside. I shuffle the kids into the car, still clad in their pajamas – they can change in the car, I figure - and we drive to Dodger Stadium as the sun peeks over the horizon.

Hundreds of others, all of whom have loved ones with Type 1 diabetes, also brave the morning and this effort to find a cure, a relief from continuous insulin shots, never-ending finger pricks, frightening low bloods sugars, and dangerously high blood sugars.

We embrace old friends that we have seen here for nearly ten years, smile sympathetically at newcomers unfamiliar with the routine, eat a quick box of Cheerios, and then start collecting donations as friends and family stream into Dodger Stadium in support of a little girl weary of a burden no 11-year-old should have to bear.

For more information on the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation, please visit www.jdrf.org. Do you have a child struggling with this disease? Share your stories with Vickie at vickieoddino@familymagazinegroup.com.