Announcing IHope Day, an awareness day for IH! Kathi is always looking for ways to spread the word about IH, and especially spreading HOPE for everyone who is affected by this rare disease. We were talking with our good friend, Monica of TG Bears (she handcrafts Kathi Bear) in mid April about a day for IH awareness. We had noticed that she participated in a Purple Day for Epilepsy awareness and were intrigued. As we were talking with Monica, we wondered if there was a Blue-Green Day for IH awareness. We did some research and found that IH awareness doesn't have its own day..... yet!
A couple of questions came up: what should we name our day, and when should it be? We posed the questions to our Board of Directors and together came up with IHope Day on June 25th. How did we select these? Kathi's desire for this day -- and her foundation -- is to inspire IH'ers and their supporters, caregivers, and friends to always have HOPE no matter what is going on around them. There is relief out there; there is a cure out there; there is support out there. We need HOPE to keep up the fight! And since Kathi's foundation was the organization birthing this day, we wanted the title to reflect the foundation somehow; this worked out well, since "IHope" is also a term used by so many IH'ers around the world -- the day would have instant familiarity in the IH community.
As for the date, IH Awareness Month is in September, so there are a lot of IH awareness events going on then already. Rare Disease Day is in February, and since IH is a rare disease there are a lot of IH awareness events going on then, too. So we thought we would pick a date in between the two to keep awareness in the forefront of the public consciousness year round. That meant we needed a date in the summer months. Kathi's birthday is on June 25th, right in the middle of the timeframe we were looking for! Monica suggested that we use that date for IHope Day, we posed the suggestion to the Board of Directors, and it was agreed that IHope Day would be on June 25th.
Monica even offered to support this event as she had Purple Day for epilepsy awareness: she is offering five (5) Kathi Bears at discounted prices just for this event! How awesome is that? The discount ($49.99) is 1/3 off the regular price of each bear ($74.99), and includes shipping to any USA address. This deal is available on IHope Day only, on a first come first serve basis. As an added bonus, we're throwing in a pair of blue and green ear ribbons with each of the 5 Kathi Bears ordered through this event!
We've made an event page on Facebook that you can join if you have a Facebook account. Lots of great ideas there on what you can do to celebrate IHope Day, and suggestions on spreading the word in your hometown. If you don't have a Facebook profile, no worries! We also have a public IHope Day page on Facebook for you -- no profile necessary!
We're encouraging everyone to write to your local government and ask that they support IHope Day as a day of awareness of IH. Contact your government office and tell them what IH is. Tell them that we are hosting a day to let people know that this rare disease is out there, it's debilitating, and we need a cure. Ask them to please make a declaration instituting IHope Day as as an official IH awareness day. If you need help or advice, please contact us at TheIHopeFoundation@gmail.com and we'll be glad to help you out. We can do this together!
Please join us for IHope Day on June 25th. Wherever you are, you can participate! It can be as simple as wearing blue and green that day and sending people to the IH Research Foundation website for more information, or you can go all out and make t-shirts, banners, buttons, and more! Whatever you choose to do, we hope you'll share your activities and ideas on our Facebook page. We would love to celebrate with you!
~ Pia
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