By Kari Slusser
Raising Awareness for CHARGE syndrome is mostly simple: you just talk to people about the syndrome, post photos, wear the royal blue, and so on. But we all know it‘s a constant battle to keep it fresh in people‘s minds. Raising money–as the Foundation and all of us know–is an entirely different challenge. I have failed many times but I’ve also had some successes. It can be truly frustrating when people are not reaching into their pockets to support your cause, a cause you feel so emotionally tied to. I’ve learned to not get myself down if I don’t raise much money with a campaign. You simply can’t expect everyone to support your cause overnight. In my recent campaigns I decided to fundraise with T-shirts. The trick to being successful is to find something everyone would buy. I found a design a lot of people liked and ran with it. I listened to my fellow families and added many options to the design. Lastly, I ran the campaign more than once. The first time around the Foundation received over $328.00 in profit; the second time around $0 and the third time around I raised another $175.00 for the CHARGE Syndrome Foundation. I plan on doing more fundraisers in the future. CHARGE may be rare, and we may feel alone, but we are not alone, we are a family. And there is nothing I enjoy more than giving back to my family!
