Spare a Rose, Save a Child: Dedicate this Valentine’s Day to Helping a Kid With Diabetes Survive

Life with diabetes is challenging under any circumstance, but imagine what it would be like if you didn’t have access to syringes, or any test strips, or, for that matter, insulin. It might sound like a rhetorical question, since we all know the answer — at best, you’d develop serious complications, and at worst, you’d die — but that situation is a reality for many kids around the world. (According to Fran Kaufman, MD, diabetes advocate extraordinaire, the death rate for kids with Type 1 in Haiti reaches an astounding 80 percent in the first year after diagnosis.) That’s why a bunch of diabetes advocates have joined together to create the Spare a Rose, Save a Child campaign (for the 2nd year in a row!) to try to channel some of our collective Valentine’s Day love into helping kids who need it the most. 

The basic idea: instead of buying your sweetheart a full bouquet of flowers, you donate the price of one rose (or several, if you’re up for it!) to the International Diabetes Federation’s Life for a Child program. They take that money and use it to pay for insulin, blood glucose testing supplies, diabetes education and clinical care for children in need.

A single rose ($5) can help support a child for a month.

As I write, the campaign is up to more than $14,000 $19,000 (!!) — a truly astounding achievement for such a grassroots initiative. We’re trying to reach at least $20,000. Will you help make this Valentine’s Day make a difference?

More information about the initiative at SpareARose. And you can read another account of why this is important (from blogger Melissa Lee) here.

Please tweet, retweet, Facebook, email, and whatever else you can do to spread the word — and happy Valentine’s day to you all!

If you need any more convincing that this is a big deal, check out this (heart-breaking) trailer for the Life for a Child documentary, “In the Hearts of Africa”:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6taBwRy8t1s[/youtube]

Catherine Price

Catherine Price (www.catherine-price.com) was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes when she was 22 years old. She has written for publications including The Best American Science Catherine Price is a professional journalist who was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes when she was 22 years old. Her work has been featured in publications including The Best American Science Writing, The New York Times, Popular Science, The Los Angeles Times, The San Francisco Chronicle, The Washington Post Magazine, Salon, Slate, Men’s Journal, Health Magazine, The Oprah Magazine, and Outside, among others. A graduate of Yale and UC Berkeley’s Graduate School of Journalism

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Catherine Price

Catherine Price was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes when she was 22 years old. She has written for publications including The Best American Science Catherine Price is a professional journalist who was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes when she was 22 years old. Her work has been featured in publications including The Best American Science Writing, The New York Times, Popular Science, The Los Angeles Times, The San Francisco Chronicle, The Washington Post Magazine, Salon, Slate, Men’s Journal, Health Magazine, The Oprah Magazine, and Outside, among others. A graduate of Yale and UC Berkeley’s Graduate School of Journalism