$1 dollar for a Cure

I have to tell you about a 10 year old girl who is amazing.

Her name is Emily Berry. In January of this year, she was diagnosed with an inopearable brain tumor.  Rather than bursting into tears, instead of yelling, “Why me?” this little girl waited until the neurologist left the room, she looked at her parents and said, “You know, I’m going to name it (the tumor) Delores.  And Delores has got to go!”  This is what they are up against.

Emily’s parents, Cory and Kevin, were later amazed to learn from one of their doctors that ‘dolor’ means ‘pain’ in Latin and  ‘dolor’ + ‘es’ means to ‘get rid of pain’.  How did this sweet girl know to name her nemesis Delores?

Emily’s tumor is a Pediatric Low Grade Astrocytoma (PLGA), the most common form of brain tumors in children.  There aren’t many treatment options and the PLGA Foundation is tragically underfunded.  So, there aren’t many treatment options.  Emily recently finished a 10 week course of chemotherapy that didn’t slow the tumor’s progress.  They are exploring other options with their team of doctors at Cardinal Glennon’s Children’s Hospital in St. Louis.

Emily and her family came up with a plan.  In addition to getting rid of Delores, they created their own Non-profit foundation to raise $1 million dollars for research to fight PLGA’s.  They are doing it with their very own website, www.ColorForACure.org.  They are hoping to raise the money $1 dollar at a time.  To track their progress, Emily’s dad created a ‘one million pixel picture’.  For every dollar donated, one pixel of the entirely black picture will turn the color of your choice.  Right now the picture is lit by over 4000 colored dots of light. 

I hope you will stop by Emily’s site.  I hope you can part with $1 to help this little girl reach her goal. And, I hope you will pass www.ColorForACure.org on to your friend’s and family.

100% of the money raised will go to  the PLGA specifically for research.  Not one penny will be spent on administrative costs.  You go through a secure Google checkout when you donate.  Until the end of this year, Google will not charge a transaction fee for non-profit groups. (PayPal apparently takes 32 cents of every dollar), so the family truly hopes to reach their goal by December 31st. 

Color Emily’s dreams with a few red, blue, yellow and green pixels.

Read more about Emily’s story here.

www.ExtraordinaryMommy.com