These children - ages 4 to 17, representing all 50 states and the District of Columbia and all diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes - will converge on Washington, D.C., June 17-20, to tell their stories and urge lawmakers to help find a cure during the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation's Children's Congress. Allison will represent Montana in the Children's Congress. JDRF is the world's largest charitable funder of type 1 diabetes research.
Led by JDRF international chairman Mary Tyler Moore, JDRF's Children's Congress 2007 will include congressional visits and a Senate hearing where Moore, select child delegates, researchers, and business and community leaders will testify on the need for continued funding for research on diabetes and related complications. Moore and the child delegates, under the theme of “Promise to Remember Me,” will ask members of Congress to support an increase in federal funding for diabetes research.
“Anyone who has been there will tell you that the day you or your child is diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes is a day you will never forget,” said Moore, who has had Type 1 diabetes for more than 35 years.
Allison, the daughter of Darcy and Andy Trent, was selected to Children's Congress through JDRF's Northwest Chapter. She was diagnosed with diabetes when she was 4 years old.
“It is important to go to Children's Congress because if people with diabetes don't keep trying to find a cure with money for research, we will never have new technology to help people that are suffering and have a hard time with their diabetes,” Allison said in a statement about the program. Her parents and two younger sisters will accompany her on the trip.
Children's Congress has been held every other year since 1999; it has become the largest media and grass-roots event held in support of finding a cure for Type 1 diabetes, organizers said.
JDRF, founded in 1970 by the parents of children with juvenile diabetes, has provided more than $1 billion to diabetes research worldwide. More than 80 percent of JDRF's expenditures directly support research and education about research. For more information, visit the JDRF Web site at www.jdrf.org or call 800-533-CURE.
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