Caring & Sharing Weekend Forms Go Online May 14
This May, the 7th Annual Caring & Sharing Weekend will take place at the Double H Ranch in Lake Luzern, NY. The event, free to participating families, brings together children with diabetes and their parents and siblings (sometimes grandparents, too) to enjoy two days of fun and sharing.
Pump Wear Inc. ((www.pumpwearinc.com)
Although the weekend is completely free, families chosen for it must pay for their own transportation to and from it.
While the 27 participating families for this year’s event have already been chosen, registration forms for the May 2015 Caring & Sharing Weekend will go up online on May 15, 2014 at www.pumpwearinc.com/page/caring-and-sharing-weekend-15.html
Any family can register for weekend, which typically draws most of its participants from the East, Midwest, and Canada. Event organizers say registrations from families living further west and south are very welcome.
About 80 percent of the children with diabetes who attend the weekend are on insulin pumps and continuous glucose monitors, so the event is very pump aware and friendly.
Because the event’s popularity, participating families are chosen by event organizers each October, then informed in December just before Christmas. This gives selected families several months to plan for the weekend.
The weekend began seven years ago when Julie DeFruscio, Dawn Juneau, and Katie Marchlok (Julie and Katie are both parents of children with diabetes) decided there needed to be a place where families with children who have diabetes could just relax for a weekend together and bond.
The trio was lucky to find “The Double H Ranch” (a Paul Newman Hole in The Wall Camp) in Lake Luzerne, which was willing to work with them. Unbeknown to them, there was an angel already at the Double H Ranch named Kathy Striker. She had been on the camp board and was a type 1 herself. Kathy heard about the proposed Caring & Sharing Weekend and was instrumental in getting started that first year.
Since that very first meeting Kathy has committed her love, time, energy, and her team of women who work with the Pump Wear team throughout the year to raise funds for the weekend.
The weekend itself has one morning and one evening meeting where families can connect with one another, while the rest of the time is spent enjoying swimming, boating, hiking, ropes courses, talent shows, and camp fires.
Anyone wishing to donate to the Caring & Sharing Weekend should contact Double H Ranch at www.doublehranch.org. Let them know you are donating to the diabetes weekend.
