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On Friday, Oct. 20, the Chapter and Animas Corporation sponsored a family BBQ
and our first “SeaSnooze” – a spend the night with the sharks program at
Mote Marine Laboratory on City Island in Sarasota. This being the first
year for
this activity, it was limited to the first 20 children between the ages of
8 and 12, and it filled up fast!
The evening started out with check-in for the parents whose children were
spending the night, while the kids were having fun outside with games,
arts and crafts. Thanks to the Sarasota Outboard Club, we had a fantastic
facility
for this! After the parents had finished with all their paperwork, everyone
came in and was welcomed by Florida Suncoast Chapter executive director,
Sara Rankin, who thanked everyone for coming and introduced Tony Galliani
from Animas.
Tony introduced everyone helping out –
all the chaperones were diabetes nurse educators! Jeannie Kawcak, our special
events coordinator, distributed family Walk materials and talked about
building your family Walk teams.
The children were scheduled to go over to Mote at 6:30, so everyone and
everything was gathered up, and the children and chaperones left. After
everyone that was
spending the night left, the families were treated to a fantastic dinner,
complements of Animas, from Sonny’s BBQ!
During dinner, family therapist Joe Solowiejczyk spoke. He has had diabetes
for 43 years, and talked about the adventures and problems he’s had.
He also told the families that he can judge how well a family will
handle a child’s
diagnosis by the involvement of the family in learning about diabetes.
It was
a very informative talk; we had several families in attendance with
newly diagnosed children.
Reports from the families indicated it was a raging success: One mother
said her daughter “had the time of her life,” and “until this came
around my child
never wanted to do anything regarding her diabetes – now she’s made
a friend and they exchanged phone numbers and e-mail addresses! It
will be
a good
thing for her to be friends with someone going through the same physical
challenges and issues she is dealing with.”
Thank you to everyone from Animas and the Sarasota Outboard Club.
Thank you to all the families that attended – we covered the whole
West coast
– families
came from Palmetto to Fort Myers! Also, thank you to the volunteers
that helped make this such a success – April, Taylor, Mitch and
Max Cohen, Sue and John
Hatton, Don Jacobowitz, Laurie Lachowitzer, Sigi Moriece and especially
Don McQuire from the Sarasota Outboard Club!
