By Nicole Gibbard, Event Organizer, Glitter and Glue, Chicago, February 28, 2015
Last year on Linkedin, one of my favorite authors, Kelly Corrigan, posted a personal challenge to raise $1M for charity as part of her 2015 Glitter and Glue paperback book tour. I knew immediately she was speaking to me and I couldn’t wait to bring this beloved author to our community while also raising funds for children with Down syndrome. I couldn’t imagine anything better.
Selecting LuMind Foundation to benefit from Corrigan’s appearance was an easy choice. My five year-old niece, Mia Wuellner, has Down syndrome. From the day she was born her loving parents, Sarah and Tom, have worked to give her the best life. Early on they looked for organizations that would eventually help their daughter lead a more independent life full of every possibility. This search lead them to the LuMind Foundation. LuMind works with Stanford University, John Hopkins, Emory University, and others to fund research. Historically, an underfunded area, there are breakthroughs on the horizon for children like Mia and LuMind is driving the issue. This research is helping to develop drugs to improve cognitive function in individuals with Down syndrome. Medication that can address the cognitive and behavioral deficits in both adolescents and adults with Down syndrome is currently being explored. This is music to the ears of Sarah and Tom.
Corrigan is the author of The Middle Place, Lift, and Glitter and Glue. All three books weave the joy of family and the fragility of life in such a way to make us all laugh and cry – sometimes on the same page. Her books remind us to pause and embrace the craziness that is life. Glitter and Glue is a tribute to Corrigan’s complicated relationship with her own mother and best attempts at raising her daughters. As Kelly’s prose in Glitter and Glue reminds us “time goes only one way, things end, affections wax and wane – I was the sole distributor of the strongest currency they would ever know: maternal love.”
Our family is in this life journey, rooting for Mia to live her life to the fullest. With LuMind’s research breakthroughs, Sarah and Tom’s love will take Mia’s potential even further.
Kelly Corrigan will be appearing at the Glitter and Glue event on February 28, 2015 in St. Charles, Illinois. To purchase tickets, which include a copy of the book Glitter and Glue, visit the ticketing website.
And… THANK YOU NICOLE!
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