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well ladies and gentlemen of the list, it has been somewhat of a difficult year for me both physicially and with my 501 (c)(3) organization called Calipso-the means whereby i was able to put on a huge day of awareness and fundraising Shake, Rattle & Roll & giving a large donation to Dr. Craig Cady. Dr. Cady is a professor at Bradley University in Peoria, IL, a brilliant sciencist who is very involved in doing stem cell research and my good friend. over the past years, we have raised over $90,000 for Dr.Cady and other local and national causes. this year, because of my steadily declining health, i had come to the realization that i could no longer do all the planning and set-up and work that having my event requires. to further cement this notion in my head, my top two sponsors have had to, because of the economic situation and job lay-offs, pull their support for my organization. i lost both a $5,000 sponsor and a $2,500 sponsor. While Dr.Cady continues to need outside donations, he/we have been blessed by two seperate organizations giving him $10,000 each during the past months. i feel that my days of very large donations is over so this year, we have decided to have a Shake, Rattle & Roll Lite!! with the money from other sponsors & my girlfriend who manages a hotel, we have reserved about 20 rooms for the nights of friday, sept. 25th and saturday, sept 26th. i have invited a great group of parkies from all over the United States who represent alot of the online support groups for early onset pd-ers. on the friday nite, we will go to the Contemporary Art Center, who will be holding a Parkinson's Awareness night for us. the public is invited and they (and we) will hear a hot blues band from Kansas City, look over all my materials & art that i have collected over the years, hear a short talk about pd, and take up a collection for Calipso. then on saturday, we will have a conference beginning at 9 am featuring a break-away session in the am for patients and caregivers and then coming back together before lunch. in the pm, we will have each of the representatives from the online support organizations give a brief talk about the options and services that they provide. this will last until 4 pm. during this conference, we will arrange tours of Dr. Cady's stem cell lab, which i have found fascinating, hope inspiring and gets people in the mood to do something to help. (for instance, last year, two friends from KY took on the important work of umbilical chord blood collection for Dr. Craig) then on sunday, we will have a parkie picnic in my back yard. i think that it is important that these parkies can count on a hotel room and provided food so that they can come & just have their traveling expenses to worry about. if there is anyone on this list who would be interested in helping me in this new-to-me project, please contact me offlist at: [log in to unmask] i would certainly appreciate your help and thank you in advance. Joan Blessington Snyder 57-19 www.calipso-pd.org "Hang tough...no way through it but to do it." Chris in the Morning Northern Exposure Rayilyn Brown Director AZNPF Arizona Chapter National Parkinson Foundation [log in to unmask] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- To sign-off Parkinsn send a message to: mailto:[log in to unmask] In the body of the message put: signoff parkinsn