As most of you know, diabetes research is especially important to our family. This is our 6th year supporting Beat the Bridge and this year Emma is speaking for herself.

Hi, my name is Emma and I?m 11 years old. I have had Type 1 Diabetes for 6 years and hope you decide to support me and the millions of other people who have to live with this chronic disease. My family and I have had to adjust to daily blood sugar checking, carbohydrate counting, and injections. Living with Diabetes is hard , but I try not to let it get in the way of my life. Of course, sometimes you have to drop whatever you?re doing to check your sugar and then, depending on what it is, either take extra sugar or extra insulin. Diabetes can affect your health in other ways as well. For example, it can harm your kidneys, heart or eyes. I try not to think about that too much.

Your sponsorship goes to the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation, founded in 1970 by the parents of children with Type 1 diabetes . This is a unique organization, created to accelerate a cure for the disease and its complications and is so focused that 86 cents of every dollar raised is spent on research. This organization is truly effective, last year we invested $156M in research across 700 funded projects, 29 of which are in current Clinical Trials and nearly half at Phase 2 These are spread across the research areas of Autoimmunity, Replacement and Regeneration (of insulin cells), Complications, Metabolic Control and Prevention.

With chapters of committed volunteers around the world, we have been involved with JDRF since Emma was diagnosed and I currently assist directly as a local Board Member. With your continued generous support, now, more than ever, you can make a crucial difference. Won't you please give to JDRF as generously as possible? Together, we can make the cure a reality.