Reading For Rachel Update
Cathy Dorocak

It was another successful year for our Reading for Rachel campaign and this coming year promises to be even better with more commitments from new schools to participate. We are very proud of the fact that our reading program has raised approximately $30,000 for TM research since its inception four years ago. What a wonderful gift we are giving to Rachel and to others with TM - the gift of hope!

Participation is easy. We simply contact schools in our area and ask them to have the students participate in our reading program. We do this by involving the PTA leadership to help make this event happen at the school. We have learned that the best time to do this is early in the school year before all of the planning is complete. We ask them to check out the website: www.readingforrachel.org to learn more about Rachel and the affect Transverse Myelitis has had on her life. All of the materials needed to participate in the program can be found on the website and it can be modified in any way a school sees fit.

It works like this: Kids are asked to read books, pages, chapters (whatever the school decides is appropriate for the grade level) and they obtain pledges for their reading efforts. At the end of the Reading for Rachel campaign, the kids collect their pledges and turn the money into the school. Cash is converted into a check for The Transverse Myelitis Association and individual checks are sent in as well - noting Reading for Rachel on the memo line. It is exciting to see how each school does and it can really add up. We have been to several of the participating schools, including Pauline Siegel's school (where she is a 2nd grade teacher) and it is so wonderful to see how excited the kids are to help out. It is definitely a win/win situation - the kids are reading and feeling good about it and it helps the research fund of the TMA!

We have had kids read for a day all the way up to a month and we have also received money into the Reading for Rachel fund in a number of other ways, including:

• Flat donations: either for kids just participating, via donation bins in school cafeterias, or by someone reading about Rachel's TM and donating from the website information.
  
  
• Penny Wars: this is a lot of fun and usually raises a lot of money - kids save pennies which are counted, but other classes put silver into a bucket and this subtracts from the total. The class with the highest net total wins! You can see how this can be fun for the kids trying to sabotage each other's class!
  
  
• Donations in honor and memory of someone's death: - the Reading for Rachel Program/TMA has become a favorite charity of several people.
  
  
• Valentine Heart Grams - one school in our area has the children send each other notes on little hearts the entire week of Valentine's Day. Each one costs 25 cents and the kids just love it. It has become an annual tradition at this school and all money raised goes towards Reading for Rachel! A girl scout troop at the school worked on this as their monthly service project this past year.
  
  
• Sales of Goods/Services - For example, Rachel's Grandpa makes birdhouses and donates the money he makes from that into the fund.

We are hopeful you will get involved in raising money for the TMA and if you need an idea, please consider using the Reading for Rachel Program to do it! Everything is all set up on the web site and you can make the program come to life locally with your own (or your child's) TM experience. In this process, we have reached another local person who had never met anyone else with TM (she is the grandmother of a kindergarten student in our area). Besides the money we have raised, we are grateful to have made the connection with this person. And, we are definitely raising awareness of TM. If you have any questions at all, please contact me and I will be happy to share my ideas with you.

Cathy Dorocak
Reading for Rachel Chairperson
(440) 572-5574