Ben Teller’s Story

Ben Teller was diagnosed with Hodgkin’s Lymphoma when he was 18 years old. He has had three surgeries and 12 treatments of chemotherapy. His inspiring story of determination and courage to overcome this disease has been a source of strength to all who know him. Ben decided to take this cancer head on, just as he does on the soccer field. He created the “Cuck Fancer” team and wristband to sell and raise money and awareness for the Lymphoma Society. To date, he and his friends have raised about $6,100 and with the help of his aunt, created a website cuck-fancer.com

Ben’s cancer is now in remission, thanks to his determination to beat this disease and with the help of his family, friends and doctors for their support in helping him raise money for cancer research. Ben is now a 19 year old freshman attending UC Irvine.

Branden’s Hope

Every newborn deserves the right to have a chance at life. “Newborn screening is vital in preventing a devastating outcome of certain metabolic, hormonal, and genetic disorders not clinically recognizable at birth,” says Catherine Houskay from the March of Dimes Public Affairs Board Chair.

In July of 2005, Branden Miller was diagnosed at nine months with a terminal disease known as Krabbe Leukodystrophy, which is an inherited, fatal, nervous system disease. It has no known treatment or cure. Denise and Ryan, Branden’s parents, have dedicated their time to help raise money and awareness towards research on this horrible disease. For more information they have set up a website at brandenshope.com

Pro Football Hall of Fame and former Buffalo Bills quarterback Jim Kelly has helped adopt the Newborn Screening Saves Lives Act (S.1858) sponsored by Senator Christopher Dodd and co-sponsored by other Senators. Read more…

Reminderband had the opportunity to donate some wristbands towards this worthy cause. Hopefully these real life stories will bring more awareness that so much more needs to be done in conquering this dreadful disease

A True Story About A Dog Named Baby

This true story of a three-legged white poodle named Baby and the inspiration for hope of dogs everywhere. Andy Rooney once said, “The average dog is a nicer person than the average person.”

Reminderband Inc had the honor in making some silicone wristbands to help bring awareness about cruelty in the dog breeding industry. This heart wrenching story about how Baby endured a nine year ordeal at a puppy mill. Her vocal cords cut, so that her cries could not be heard and one of her legs had to be amputated due to the abuse she encountered. Jana Kohl is an author and is now the new owner of this beautiful dog named Baby. For more information, please visit Jana’s website at ararebreedoflove.com

Sergeant Merlin German

How do you repay the many men and women who fight for our freedom every day? They sacrifice so much in order for us to have the freedom and liberty that we all enjoy. Reminderband Inc had the opportunity of making silicone wristbands in honor of Sergeant Merlin German.

Merlin was born in Manhattan, New York on Nov 15th, 1985. On January 21st, 2005, Sergeant German’s squad was on a mission enroute from Jordan to Baghdad, when he saw an IED while standing in the turret. His humvee was hit by a gas-fed charge explosive and Sergeant German was burned over 97% of his body. He had endured about 100 surgeries and much pain before he died on April 11th 2008. His courage and great attitude will be missed by all who knew him. He fought his personal battle for nearly three years, but died while recovering from his last surgery.

Merlin loved children and started a foundation to assist burned children and their families. It was his dream to grant these families with their wish. To donate or read more about this information, go to merlinsmiracles.com

Olympic Hopeful

I wanted to contact you to let you know how awesome Test Me I’m Clean is doing! So far we have sent out Reminderbands to 11 different countries Including the U.S., 17 different states and 26 different U.S. cities!!!!!!!

I also just wanted to let you know that the Olympic trials are being held in Eugene Oregon on June 27th through July 6th! I will be handing out Reminderbands like crazy!!!!!

Please Let everyone know that I will be racing to make the Olympic team and My Test Me I’m Clean wristband will be right there with me every step of the way! I cannot thank you enough for all the work you did to help support my organization and me as well!

I really appreciate it so much and I just wanted to keep you updated on how your Olympic hopeful athlete is doing!

Looking forward to hearing back from you soon!

Sincerely, Deedee Trotter

Tampa Bay Supports the Next Tiger Woods

Harris Armstrong could be the next Tiger Woods. Harris is 12 years old and has already broken 70 twice. Golf legends such as Tiger Woods and Charles Howell III are already admiring his talent.

Unfortunately, Harris had an MRI that revealed he had a tumor on his spinal cord. Gayle Guyardo is a family friend as well as a News Channel 8 morning anchor who had the following to say about Harris’ situation and how they support him with silicone wristbands.

In the news industry, we don’t grandstand when it comes to our beliefs and opinions…But if you take a close look, you’ll see I’ve lifted the ban on wearing bands. I’m supporting family friends I cherish and a young boy who is one of life’s true heroes.

But in typical Armstrong family style, all their friends and family were encouraged to cry only a little so we could focus on fighting for Harris.

Part of that fight was slipping on one of those popular wristbands. On a break from his job at Bank of Tampa, Jeff raced over to the News Center and dropped off a small envelope with white bands inside. They have clever indentations on them that look like the surface of a golf ball, and the words read “Pray Strong”.

The powerful message is spreading. Harris has been featured on local television stations like our morning show at WFLA. Local newspapers have featured Harris, and his story has been on Orlando’s Golf Channel.

Who knew a simple wristband could overpower negative feelings with thoughts of hope and appreciation?”

Wristbands Support the Troops

A charity campaign which was set up by a teacher and a group of his pupils is being given support from all over the world. Stamford’s Richard Brewster set up the Supporting Our Troops charity with pupils at Stamford School and fellow colleague Falklands veteran Marc Jackson, because of the school’s strong links with the armed forces.

Since then he has been amazed at how much support the charity has gained.

The England cricket team agreed to wear the special wristbands and One Day International skipper Paul Collingwood has continued to wear the band since the Lord’s test series – including at the 20/20 World Cup in South Africa.

Now the Red Arrows RAF display team have done a photo shoot donning the special rubber wristbands and the school has been inundated with requests from shops and stores wanting to sell the bands and help raise cash for charities such as help Combat Stress and the Army, Navy and RAF Benevolent Funds.

Mr Brewster said: “It has been brilliant. The wristbands continue to go well and we have received support from dozens of individuals offering to sell the bands around the country.

“Sales continue internationally in the USA, Canada, Australia, Brunei and Hong Kong. ”

The Battle of Britain Memorial Flight hosted pupils from the school for a visit and has agreed to sell the wristbands in its visitors centre shop at RAF Coningsby, in Lincoln.

Mr Brewster said: “We must have sold 1,800 bands so far and we’ve had lots of donations and e-mails from families of those who were out in Afghanistan.

“People have been very generous and the e-mails and letters we have received have been quite touching.”

Original article here.

Georgia Tech Football Players Cheer On Ailing Fan

Sara Keene couldn’t believe Georgia Tech’s starting free safety wanted to speak to her.

“I was like, ‘The Djay Jones?’ I needed a moment to get it all together,” Keene said. “It was really surreal. I had to think about it for a minute. It was like, ‘Do you have the right person?’ ”

Jones knew he had the right person. He just had to figure out what to say.

The call took courage, even for a guy who plays defensive back each week in front of tens of thousands of people, with every game bringing the risk that a blown tackle or a missed coverage could let those people down. Now, on the other end of the phone, there was just one person, a woman he had never met, a woman he wanted to help.

Jones knew Keene was a Georgia Tech classmate and connected by some complex combination of kinship and friendship to a woman whose uncle works with Jones’ mother. He also knew Keene had cancer.

He called to reach out, to show support, to tell her somebody out there cared.

“It was awkward,” he admitted, “but once you hear the excitement in her voice, it’s like you knew her for your whole life.”

That first October call led to more calls and text messages. Jones and his teammates talked about arranging a bus trip to visit Keene at Emory University Hospital, but cancer wards aren’t designed for large groups of extra-large visitors, so the Yellow Jackets found another way to help.

Football players and the Alpha Delta Pi sorority staged the Cookout for Keene on Nov. 12 on the lawn near the Tech Tower. Jones arranged for autographed footballs and other souvenirs to be given away in a raffle. Quarterback Taylor Bennett helped cook hot dogs and hamburgers. Running back Tashard Choice signed autographs and posed for photos. Eighty or 90 football players showed up, said Alpha Delta Pi’s Caitlin Hanson, the event planner.

That’s where Keene and Jones finally met. He gave her a big hug, and they talked, and they got their picture taken, she in her pink hat and yellow sweater, with a filtration mask hanging around her neck, he in a white Georgia Tech football strength program shirt, both smiling so naturally you’d bet your bottom dollar they weren’t saying “cheese.”

They didn’t have to feign happiness.

“I was so blown away,” Keene said.

The cookout drew about 660 students and raised more than $4,000 for the Shirlock Foundation, which provides financial assistance to families of college students who have leukemia. It is named after Jonathan Shirlock, a Tech student who died of leukemia in 2006. Jones wears orange rubber Shirlock Foundation wristbands on both wrists, along with two Tech football wristbands.

Tech fan from Bulldogs family

Keene, a 21-year-old fourth-year materials science and engineering major, has been a football fan as long as she can remember. Her father and grandfather graduated from Georgia, so she was a Bulldog, too. What elementary school girl could resist a quarterback named Mike Bobo? She was on hand in Jacksonville in 1997 when Bobo and the Bulldogs ended a seven-game losing streak to Florida.

But she switched sides when she came to Tech. During baseball season, she worked at a Russ Chandler Stadium souvenir stand with no view of the field, so she brought her computer and followed the Yellow Jackets pitch by pitch on the Internet. During football season, she went to every home game last season and traveled with boyfriend Ben Hollerbach to road games at Virginia Tech, Clemson and Georgia.

That’s what made the calls from Jones so important to her. She had been pulling for athletes all her life. Now, when she needed support, an athlete and his teammates were pulling for her.

“We’re student-athletes, but at the same time we’re classmates,” said Jones, who has been able to meet Keene just once but makes sure to stay in touch by phone and text message. “It’s for the greater good. At the end of the day, we’re not just all about football and school here. We’re family.”

The Yellow Jackets gave Keene an autographed football, and coach Chan Gailey gave her an autographed miniature football helmet. Both items sit on the mantel of her home in Fayetteville. The thing she values most, though, is the chance she has had to get to know Jones and his teammates.

“You see these guys play every week, and you’re in awe of them,” Keene said. “They’re kind of like superheroes. I wondered what they were like in general as people.”

Keene isn’t exactly ordinary. Her personality draws people to her, Hollerbach said, and she has the drive and intensity to go after whatever she wants. That got her elected last semester as secretary of the Panhellenic Council, the governing body of Tech’s sororities. It was a natural role for someone with so much school spirit.

While her boyfriend analyzes blitz packages, blocking schemes and the quarterback’s sight lines, Keene revels in the football atmosphere. She attends games to express her support for Tech and its athletes and to make the most of her big-time college experience.

She had always admired the players from a distance, never thinking she would get the chance to meet them. Of course, she never expected to get cancer, either.

Read the rest of the story here.

Campaigning to End Bullying

The campaign is running until the end of the month, and involves staff from all eight secondary schools in Moray, local community beat officers and community wardens who will all work closely together to raise awareness of this important issue.

In order to drum up support for the campaign, pupils are being encouraged to buy a purple and white rubber wristband at a cost of £1 to show support for the campaign. All profits will go towards the Childline charity, which funds a helpline for children in difficult situations who need to talk to somebody.

Posters and leaflets are being distributed in schools and police stations across the area in support of the campaign, and are being made available at local public buildings around the area.

While the leaflets give advice to parents and young people about the effects of bullying, they also target the bullies themselves by seeking to make them aware of how their actions amount to an act of bullying, which can have disastrous effects.

The aim of the campaign is to challenge young people to become more aware of how their actions and behaviour can affect the lives of others.

Constable Kevin Skivington, community beat officer for Forres, who is heading the campaign, was at the school on Friday for the launch of the initiative, which has been welcomed by all involved.

“Bullying is an aspect of life in today’s society which tends, in the main, to go un-noticed,” he said. “Schools already have policies in place to deal with bullying within schools, but there are no measures in place to deal with this form of anti-social behaviour away from the school.”

He said that this initiative is designed to raise awareness of the issue and deal with it in a positive manner.

“We are all aware of anti-social behaviour such as vandalism, noise nuisance and street disorder,” he said. “The message we would like to get out is that bullying is also a form of anti-social behaviour and can have a significant impact on the victim, both now and in the future.”

Read the rest of the article here.

Awareness and Learning from Chad’s Sudanese Refugee Camps

De Reus is the co-founder of the local chapter of Save Darfur: Central Pennsylvania. She was unsettled with what Sudanese refugees were going through and wanted to be able to speak to them in person to create a more defined awareness, as a scholar, based on what she had seen.

Lorraine Dowler is no stranger to violence. The University Park associate professor of geography and women’s studies has lived in Belfast and China in times of political turmoil and is working on a book about gender and nationalism in war zones. When De Reus approached Dowler about joining her in Chad, Dowler thought it would be a bonus to the work she was doing. In addition to the book she is writing, Dowler thought her students would better appreciate what she taught in her geography classes because she would be able to speak of what she had actually witnessed.

De Reus and Dowler began their trek in Africa, leading Penn State students in volunteer work in Tanzania. De Reus said the opportunity to go to Chad was too great to pass up since they were already on the same continent. Once the volunteer work was over and the students had made it home safely, the two professors left for Chad. Their intention was to meet women at the refugee camps and talk to them about what keeps them going despite all the tragedies and atrocities they had been through — how they found the strength to continue to provide for their families with very few resources.

Getting to Chad, however, was no easy feat. De Reus said the country was difficult to navigate, especially in 140-degree weather. They were hitching rides on U.N. planes that were only eight-seaters as well as getting car rides from non-government organizations. Security throughout the area was tight, and just before their arrival four U.N. vehicles had been hijacked. Dowler added that it was strange attending security meetings and going through convoys. They had to deal with conservative male values in order to be respectful in the foreign culture. At one point, Dowler said she became extremely ill, a sickness beyond anything she’d experienced before in her life.

Despite all the problems, once they arrived at Abeche, the refugee camp in Chad where the Sudanese were living, Dowler and De Reus spoke with about 25 women in the camps.

“They were as interested in speaking with us as we were with them,” said Dowler. “My sense is that they want to move on. They feel safer and are grateful to be in the camps but they want their independence; they want to go home but don’t believe they ever will.”

De Reus said the women’s stories were heart-wrenching. They spoke of the attacks on their village, the awful things they had witnessed, the family members they saw being murdered, being stranded in the bush and traveling at night to escape the Janjaweek (government sponsored Arab militias).

“They’re not victims, they’re incredible models of strength,” said De Reus. “They’re still raising their families and functioning as mothers. It was so revealing that these are incredible women.”

When asked what the two professors could do for the women, the reply was simple: educate. These women, whom Dowler described as beautiful and poised, wanted the world to know what was going on in their country and also wanted better opportunities for their children.

“I have students who get a bad grade on a paper and think it’s the end of the world,” said Dowler. “It’s important to me to teach them that being an international citizen and taking responsibility for what goes on in the world is a greater value.”

Dowler said she knows that having undergraduate students go to the camps and teach English to the refugees would be an invaluable teaching tool, but it’s too dangerous and too expensive to get there. So instead, she and De Reus are able to describe to their students what is happening to people on the other side of the world. They talk about the global economy and the impact some of their purchases can make on others. De Reus said students who really want to help can write letters to their state representatives in support of the Pennsylvania divestment. They wear Save Darfur T-shirts and bracelets to create awareness and are always eager to do more for awareness.

“If the legislators don’t think people care, there is no reason to act,” De Reus said.

Dowler said a lot of her students are surprised when they learn of the magnitude of brutality and human rights violations happening not only in Sudan but around the world.

A lot of students are surprised and angry, she said. Some of their reactions reflect the five stages of grief, but when they’ve worked their way through them, they want to be activists and work toward making a change.

Dowler said that as a teacher she can give students tools to help them understand what’s going on and what organizations to get involved in. Both Dowler and De Reus hope to secure funds through grant proposals and fundraising to go back to Chad this summer to follow up with the women, document what they’ve learned and share their stories.

Adapted from here.