It's that time of year again - Great Strides time! This year's walk will be on Saturday, May 10 at Doheny Beach in Dana Point. If you'd like to donate to our walk, please click the donate link on the right side of the page. If you'd like to walk, you can sign up on-line as well.
In the email lettet that was sent out, the URL to the donation page ended up with a space in it, causing the link to not work. You can click on the Donate button on the right side of this page to get to the correct page, or search for Andrew on the page that is displayed when you click the bad link. Sorry for any confusion and thanks for donating!
Coming this July 19, PacSun will be hosting a "black tie and flip-flop" event "Pipeline to a Cure" during the US Open of Surfing in Huntington Beach, CA. Please check out the video done by someone we know to help get the word out. And you might recognize someone at about the 1:25 mark in the video.
We'll post more information as we get it. It should be a very fun event with what should be a good turn out from the pro surfers competing that week.
On Sunday, May 21, Andrew and eight other CF patients were part of the "Breath of Fresh Air" surf day sponsored by Ambry Genetics and Newport Surf Camp. Everyone arrived at the 28th Street jetty at 9am on an overcast day with surf that was a little less than what the organizers expected. But, since most of the kids (ages 8-24) hadn't surfed before, they didn't know and didn't care. Each of the CF patients was paired up with a pro surfer or one of the Newport Surf Camp instructors. Jamie O'Brien flew in from Hawaii to take part, and local pros Brad Ettinger and Cordell Miller were there as well.
The event's purpose was two-fold - to get CF patients involved in an activity that can help mitigate some of the effects of their disease, and as always bring some attention to CF and the search for a cure. I think those that helped out had as much fun as the CF patients, and it was very cool to see how the pro's brought many of their family along for the event.
Andrew had a great time, he surfed with Brad Ettinger, and they were the first in the water and the last out, as you can tell from the photos taken - he still had his wetsuit on well after everyone else had called it a morning. While he didn't get up on the board, it wasn't for a lack of effort.
Thanks again to Ambry Genetics, Newport Surf Camp, and West Surfing Products who donated wetsuits to all the participating CF patients. Watching the kids get into the wetsuit was pretty fun. And now it's an incentive to get back out on the water soon!
Well, the Dana Point walk is done and we've had a moment now to take a breath. 2007 was another successful year for Andrew's Angels! As of the walk day, our team raised nearly $16,000 dollars. Since the walk, we've received almost another $1,500, so this was a great year for the team. The Dana Point walk site totalled over $140,000, which is a record for the site. There were about 500 people that participated and over 10 teams that were part of the walk.
Thanks to everyone who walked with us and donated money to find a cure for CF.
PS - Caity's softball team got 2nd place in their division. In the morning semi-final game, Caity scored the winning run to send her team into the championship! It was a great day for everyone!
Ambry Genetics is supporting the first ever Surf Day for CF with the Newport Beach Surf Camp on May 19. The idea comes from the discovery a couple of years ago that saline helps CF patients break up the mucus that forms in their lungs, helping to reduce infections, hospitalizations, and reducing the amount of damage done to the lungs. The discovery was initiated after a CF patient's relative noticed that when they went surfing, the patient always coughed up more mucus. The resulting research gave us hypertonic saline, a therapy that Andrew has been using for over a year now.
Andrew will be taking part to learn how to surf to help raise awareness of CF, and also because he really wants to learn how to surf.
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April 19th, 2008
