This year for the Washington Tuna Classic Gig Harbor Fishing will be

Team JDRF

For the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation

As you may know my daughter Kristina was diagnosed with Type 1 Diabetes or T1D when she was 6 years old. That day all of our lives changed. We had a week long crash course on Diabetes causes and care. We learned about carb counting, Blood glucose monitoring and insulin treatment. My daughter was and is very brave and gave herself shots from the beginning.

Every day in the United States 40 children are diagnosed with T1D. There is no cure for T1D nor is there a vaccine. The truth is we still don’t know exactly what causes T1D. What we do know is it is an autoimmune disease. Which means the body attacks the cells that make insulin.

  T1D is not caused by eating too much candy, being overweight or not getting enough exercise.

It is basically a genetic malfunction.

Researchers, right now, are working on an artificial pancreas, some are working on ways to regenerate Beta cells that produce insulin and others are working on ways to stop the body from destroying the cells. Much of this promising research is happening right here in the Pacific Northwest. Thanks in large part to grants from JDRF. Since1970 JDRF has given over $1.6 Billion in grants for diabetes research.

The Washington Tuna Classic

This is the 4th annual Washington Tuna Classic.

This tournament itself is a 501 c3 Charitable organization that benefits Washington food banks and the Wounded Warrior Project, another great organization that is close to my heart. Mitch from the WTC has been a huge help to me in trying to figure out how this will work.

To the best of my knowledge no one has ever tried to run a team like this for a charity. Were sort of making this up as we go along. I thought about trying to do a donate per pound thing but the logistics became a nightmare, you have to collect pledges and then you have to chase people down and tell them what they owe. So we decided to do it like this: I am setting a goal of $2000. My hope is that lots of people will donate a little. every donation of $10 or $20 gets us that much closer to a cure for this terrible life altering disease. A lot of us drop $10 in a day on coffee. If giving up coffee for a day is too much for you spread it out over a couple days. Get a 12 oz late instead of 16 for a week. I don’t think that’s unreasonable given what these kids have to give up to live.

The Power of Social Networking

All that said the way this thing really needs to work is that YOU need to share this with your friends. This is the true power of social networking. If we can start something like this going to my friends and your friends and your friends friends……imagine what we can accomplish!!

So please, click the link and give what you can. Not a lot just some. Then share with your friends what you have done and encourage them to check it out.

Thank you for helping me with this. Now lets go fishin’