# 378 Wednesday, October 24, 2007 - MY FAVORITE PLACE: Or, How Erin Robbins is Fighting Diabetes this Sunday
If you walked down the winding hallway at the old Marine World, in Redwood City, in the mid 1970's when I was young, there would be one magical spot with dolphins behind you and sharks straight ahead.
Right there, between the two tanks at a certain time in the morning, the sunrays would beam through the water, and make a small but perfect rainbow on the black wood of the deeply-recessed window.
My own pet rainbow... and, if there was time, I would sometimes just sit in the window for a while, with the glory of the sea all around me.
It was my favorite place.
Until now.
During the battle for Prop 71, my favorite place became 550 California Avenue, in Palo Alto, California. On the third floor, Bob Klein let us use seven office rooms as a campaign headquarters for the California Stem Cells for Research and Cures Act.
I remember one meeting there, when the discussion turned to the need for a woman speaker to address a club"not sure which one it wasâ€"but it had to be a woman speaker.
I jumped my hand up, and Amy Du Ross called on me. Du Ross is one of the legendary three Amy's, Amy Daly, Amy Lewis and herself"they went by last names during the campaign" It has to be a woman, Don,"she said to me.
“I know, I know, but it is so obvious-- it has to be Daly,"I said, cheerfully volunteering somebody else to do the work.
There was a pause.
"She's dedicated, personable, can talk to anyone on any level-- and if you (DuRoss) can't make it, who knows Prop 71 better" I said. Amy Du Ross was the person Bob Klein turned to, if he couldn’t remember something about the law he helped write.
There was no argument.
So, a bunch of us went to the event, and (there is a point to this, bear with me) putting on brand new Prop 71 T-shirts, fresh out of the box.
These were beautiful items, these T-shirts. Raised velvet letteringâ€"I mean, the real deal.
Daly spoke with her usual down-to-earth cheerfulness, making friends for the effort--while Erin Robbins, Amy Lewis, Matt Jordan and five or six others tabled, taking signatures to get Prop 71 on the ballot, and passing out information.
Afterwards, there was one T-shirt left over.
And I said, "Wow, I'll take it!"
But Erin Robbins said no.
"That should go to somebody who does not already have a Prop 71 T-shirt," she said.
She was absolutely right, of course.
And I was completely embarrassed.
Before that moment, I knew Erin as a quiet young woman"it is not politically correct to say girl, but she just looks so incredibly young"who worked steadily in the fundraising department.
Now fundraising is not fun. You know those people who call you up at night and harass you for donations for the homeless goldfish fund? Imagine if you had to do that, getting told NONONONO over and over"and you are not allowed to become discouraged, because if you don't succeed, whatever campaign you are working on, just stops.
And imagine doing that for something life and death important.
The New Jersey campaign right now is battling for its life because it does not have enough fundraisers.
But this was Prop 71, and if you went into Erin's and Amy Lewis's office, you would see a huge cardboard thermometer on the wall. It was about money.
The level of the thermometer was very, very low.
So Lewis and Erin would hit the phones, fighting for dollars to keep the campaign going. There were other folks involved at both ends of the state, Bob Klein first and foremost, but Erin and Lewis were the folks I saw doing that chore, and they did it every single day.
Now the campaign is over.
But the battle still goes on.
And Erin is still involved. The same stubborn streak that let her say no to a certain greedy t-shirt-nabber, still motivates her.
At a birthday party recently, she mentioned she was helping raise funds for JDRF, the Juvenile Diabetes Research Fund"and there was a fundraiser WALK coming up" then came a significant pause.
She looked at me. I knew (and she knew I knew) what an astonishingly wonderful job JDRF had done in the 30 plus years of their existence, and surely I realized that diabetes was the number one cause of adult blindness and amputation (read the book NEEDLES by Andie Dominick, if you want a horror story about the reality of diabetes).
And, of course, she knew how many favors I asked from everybody else.
I remember idly wondering how fundraisers do their incredibly difficult job.
Apparently, just saying nothing is part of the package.
Because she just looked at me.
Those huge bluegreen eyes held no blame, no insult, just the sure and certain knowledge that I was going to do the right thing, and pledge to supportâ€"
"Umm, how can I help?" I asked.
She was gracious enough to pretend surprise.
And she just happened to have her laptop computer with her, and it somehow became convenient to follow her to the kitchen table and sit down and click-click-
"And you don't even have to actually walk" she said, (oh, good, off the hook, I thought) "--all you have to do is raise the money."
Oh.
And maybe somebody mentioned he might write a column on the event, but surely that was said off the cuff, and it would not be right away.
I didn't really forget, not actually, it was just the swirl of events, and I can't be expected to remember ev--
Whereby the following.
Hi Don,
Erin wanted to know if you have written your Walk piece?
Amy
So what we have here is an email from not only Erin, formidable enough in her own right, but also Amy Daly, who holds my note for several thousand stem cell favors.
But to give you an idea of how Daly works"she doesn't just remind me of a promise I made, and leave me alone with the chore"she also takes the time and trouble to offer actual copy, doing the vast majority of the work herself, like the following:
"You might want to include the devastating complications of diabetes, or maybe a story about someone who has suffered those complications "there was a young man, recently, whose diabetes was so brittle that he set his alarm every night in the middle of the night to check himself and make sure that he wasn't going low, went to his parents home for a week. He felt safe there and decided that he could make it through the night. He was wrong. He died during the night when his sugars went so low that his brain and body stopped functioning.
The following is all Daly, but I did contribute one word" see if you can guess which word"
WALK to Cure Diabetes!
Hi Folks,
Many of you have participated in walks to raise money for one cause or another. I am pleased to announce that I am registered to walk to cure diabetes on October 28, 2007, 11:00 in Walnut Creek, California. It is important for all of us to work together for cures. At some point in the future, we should have a walk for stem cell research. But that is then, this is now.
Now is Walk season for JDRF. Here are a few facts about these walks:
· The Walk To Cure Diabetes is JDRF’s leading fundraising event, held in more than 200 Walk sites around the world · The Walk has seen tremendous growth since its inception in 1993 â€" it raised $3 million nationwide in 1993 and we are this year they are expecting to raise $100 million. · The Walk in the East Bay is scheduled for October 28th, 11am at Heather Farm Park in Walnut Creek with an aggressive goal of raising $1.12 Million. This is the largest Walk in terms of participation and dollars raised in the Bay Area.
Another fact that you may not know is that I can do my part in this without having to actually walk in Walnut Creek! The amazing digital age in which we live allows me to fundraise and give the money to JDRF without giving up my Sunday with the missus. (Sundays with the missus are also very important!)
Facts about JDRF:
· The Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation was founded in 1970 by parents of children with juvenile diabetes -- a disease which strikes children suddenly, making them insulin dependent for life, and carries the constant threat of devastating complications. · JDRF's mission is to find a cure for diabetes and its complications through the support of research. · JDRF is the world's leading nonprofit, nongovernmental funder of diabetes research · Since its founding in 1970 by parents of children with type 1 diabetes, JDRF has awarded more than $1 billion to diabetes research, including more than $122 million in FY2006. More than 80 percent of JDRF's expenditures directly support research and research-related education. In FY2006, the Foundation funded more than 500 centers, grants, and fellowships in 20 countries.
Here is one fact about JDRF that they don't put on their brochures, but which gives them a special place in my heart: They put their money where their mouths are and contributed financially to Proposition 71. And they did this big time " giving $1 million to Prop 71 at a time when we desperately needed it.
I'm sure that my walk won't repay them fully for that generous act, but I do know that if each of us does our part, we can wipe out this devastating disease. To help, please visit my walk page by clicking here. Once there you can donate to help me meet my goal or you can register for the walk and create your own fundraising goal."
The above was from Amy"but I did contribute part of it-- notice the last paragraph, and the underlined word, "here". If you click on it, you can see how close I got to reaching my fundraising goal which Erin so kindly helped me set"
Now as for the actual walk, that is on October 28th, and I am really very busy, and my Mrs. probably won't let me--
Gloria, Amy, Karen, Erin-- I am getting ganged up on by women on every side!
It is not fair, I want a lawyer, where is my lawyer? Oh, that's right, my daughter Desiree is my lawyer"sigh. Never mind.
Don Reed
P.S. If you want to find out more about JDRF, the organization that funds research like a large country, click on: http://www.jdrf. |
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