Vote to help Cure JM!

Our friend Kevin emailed us and asked us to help out.  I absolutely love this guy, even if he has never written for me over here!  But for him... I'll do whatever I need to to help out!  Here's the email he sent: (I had to edit out the F word--because it's like fingernails on a chalkboard for me... but the emotion behind it is real.  It is the only edit I made... I swear!)




I gave away 400 business cards about Cure JM trying to win a $250,000 Pepsi Refresh grant to people at BlogHer in NYC  this past weekend.

Our application has jumped No. 6 to No. 4 in the days since.

If you would indulge me a moment, I'd like to quote the theme song to Team America: World Police:

"F, yeah!"

Now, more than ever, we need your votes, Tweets, Facebook messages, blog posts -- whatever it takes to help get Cure JM to No. 2 by Sept. 1 and win that $250,000 grant for disease research.

In addition to just the money, our all-volunteer nonprofit would also receive from Pepsi a free year of consultation with a nonprofit specialist who will help us with future fundraising, grant writing and other projects to make Cure JM a more efficient and effective organization.

I've known two kids, one less than 2 years old, who have died from complications of juvenile myositis in the 8 years my daughter has been fighting this rare autoimmune disease that attacks the major muscles, joints and blood vessels. That's not many, but it is enough.

As a disease that only 3 in a million kids a year are diagnosed with, we receive very little attention or money to research JM's cause and cure. $250,000 would be half of the $500,000 we have raised in the past year all through volunteer fundraising, and all that money would go straight to research projects and the doctors who perform them.

If my words aren't convincing enough, take a look at these videos (the first one I did, the second is by people who know what they are doing):

Cure JM Pepsi Refresh entry video (3 min): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EHZHUGowx-E

Cure JM fundraising video (5 min): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ovp4y3JHhb4

So, please -- help.

VOTE:

 Vote every day up to 3 TIMES (once per method) for Cure JM during the month of August!
(1) Send Text Vote to Pepsi (73774)  Type: 100850 to vote  *Standard text messaging rate apply.
(2) Use the Facebook app: http://bit.ly/CureJMonFB

(3) Vote directly from the Pepsi site at http://pep.si/bzLWyc.

SIGN UP FOR REMINDERS TO VOTE:

People can sign for daily e-mail reminders about voting at www.curejm.org. If we win the Pepsi Refresh grant, people who signed up for the reminder service will be in a drawing for an iPad, which one of our member has generously agreed to donate.

PRAY.
Optional for non-believers.

Thanks for listening and helping. I don't like bothering you about this stuff, but I believe in the power of the Internet and the friends I've made on it. 

Kevin
Always Home and Uncool: www.blogonkevin.blogspot.com