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Dear Mary and Gina, I think your ideas are wonderful. And I think that properly planned and worked out, they just might work. The only problem is: who is going to coordinate it? Hilary Blue ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Mary Sheehan wrote: > > Great idea, Gina. I have always thought that what we needed was a "grand > gesture" to bring attention to the needs of the PD community... something that > will bring national press coverage. > > In other words, we need a gimmick. Your photo > idea could be just as effective as the AIDS quilt in educating people about PD > and garnering sympathy for our cause. > > I have a few more suggestions for everyone's consideration: > 1.Have PWPs, caregivers and family members send in their photos. > > 2. Each photo should be pasted on [or scanned onto] an 8x10 piece of paper > which includes name, number of years since onset, age at onset and a brief > statement of how PD has altered your life. Caretakers and family would of > course, explain how your PD altered their lives > . > 3. Send copies of the photo page to your congressman, senators, director of > the NIH and members of the Appropriations Committee. > > 4. Try to have all the photos arrive on the same day in September to make the > greatest impact. > > 5. If there could be a meeting that day in Washington of young onset PWPs and > some Udall supporting senators and congressmen, that would be excellent. > > 6. See if you can get permission to display all of the photo pages in the > Capitol building. > > 7. Call a press conference. Invite Mohammed Ali, Janet Reno (she's probably > in the neighborhood), Morris Udall's family, etc., to submit photo pages and > to speak about PD and the need for research money. > > I firmly believe that with a grand gesture such as this, we'll finally get > recognition (perhaps even become the disease du jour for a while). This may > seem like a lot of work but if it's divided into small parts, with different > people in charge of each part, it's definitely do-able and could finally get > some of us on the Oprah Show. > > BTW, we should aim for at least 3000 different photo pages (2 each per list > member). > > What do you think? > Mary Sheehan