And the winners are.....

Today is the big day!!!

First let me thank Corinne who has worked with my on behalf of AccuCheck.  She was very patient as she answered emails and tried to keep in contact with me at a very difficult time in my personal life.  She waited for me to return from family obligations only to have to wait again for me to finish with the Health Activists Writers' Challenge before we could get things on the go. 

Finally we got there however and on May 1st we got this contest off the ground! Three cards were to go to three people to say thank-you.  Now that was a daunting task!  First, as I mentioned was to come up with someone for me to "pay it forward" to thank with a $200 donation.  As many of you mentioned in your own testimonies of support, it had to go back to Children with Diabetes.  They have a Scholars Foundation that helps out with both university scholarships and getting families to conferences.  I sent the first $200 Visa card to Mary Podjasek on Friday!

There were a lot of little ballots to cut and draw from!

The second card asked for reader participation.  I wanted to hear from you, the readers. I wanted to see you share what we said, comment, and get the word out about Diabetes Advocacy. Wow!!! Did you ever! Some of you truly took the bull by the horns and my archaic system of watching and counting posts took up a large amount of time each day....and I LOVED it!!! I placed all of your names on a spread sheet  and noted how many times we heard from you from May 1 until the 6th (one ballot for every time you mentioned us or joined a conversation).  Your names were then transferred to a second sheet of ballots.  Those ballots were be drawn from and the winner is.......Jen Salzman!!

I had Larry draw the winner to guarentee impartiality.

The third card asked you who had supported you. There were some great responses.  I told you that my son would be judging.  I reminded him of this today and told him some of the responses that we had. I also told him about the person who wanted to write an essay entitled "How Liam changed my life".  He thought that one was a sure winner and was ready to hand her the money without a second thought! Unfortunately only the title was submitted and I reminded him that we could not operate our first contest with such obvious overtones of bribery so he had to look at the rest of the submissions and decide. 

Personally I was touched by the submissions.  More than one of you stated how much I had helped you through.  You honor me and I am so proud to call so many of you friends.   I have enjoyed conversations, meals and glasses of wine with many of you and look forward to many more!

Needless to say, making a final decision was difficult but the winner of the third gift card is the person who wrote....
 I've been thinking a ton about this since you asked the community to share. My first thought is all the folks who were such an incredible, tremendous support to us when my daughter transitioned from shots to her pump, in 2004. Yup, we are coming up 10 years of D very soon. You were there, ♥ Barb ♥, as were a ton of people from the online d community, especially the CWD parent list. Our Cozmo pump rep was also a super supportive person as was our pharmacist and our infusion set rep. The staff at CWD who run the best d conferences bar none, have been a great resource. But I think the most supportive person is actually my "d" kid - my most awesome daughter, Kate. She is my rock and my inspiration. As we all do, over the years, we have had terrible "d" days and nights, and then miraculous days where "d" was simply a shadow, wwwaaaaayyyyy in the background (those are the best, yes?) But no matter what the day, what the issue, she is there, doing what she needs to do, and...doing it exceptionally well and with little fan fair. She may not be the most public person about her "D-ness" but she is quietly the person who will be the first person to lend a hand and a word of encouragement to her peers. She accepts it all with grace and courage. When I feel *my* grace has slipped, and my courage is rattled, there she is, telling me "its okay Mom, I got this."
 Kelli Doyle!

Thank you again to everyone who participated. I would love to have been able to give a card to each one of you as you have all enriched our lives for being apart of our little corner of the Diabetes Online Community.

Thank you again....And congratulations!!!

Kelli and Jen, please contact me privately with your mailing address (within the next 72 hours) so that I can get these cards out into the mail to you.