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Our Initiatives The "Our Initiatives" column provides an update on some of the ongoing projects of the Liddy Shriver Sarcoma Initiative.
In this issue:
"Sarcoma Wins Big" in The Facebook Causes Giving Challenge
But, this is not the end of the goods news. The Chordoma Foundation also placed in the top 10 in the Facebook challenge. They received $14,648, including one of the daily prizes! With the $10,000, this would bring their total to $24,648. Given the competition that these two small sarcoma advocacy groups were up against ― e.g., Love Without Boarders, Tibetan Freedom Movement, Fight Poverty International, and Fight Aids Now ― it is truly amazing that they both finished in the top ten causes. Think of what was achieved in increasing awareness of sarcoma as each day the scores of donors of the other causes in the competition saw either the Liddy Shriver Sarcoma Initiative's name or the Chordoma Foundation's name (or both of their names) in the top 10 list every day!
Team Sarcoma Event planning is underway as part of the 2008 Team Sarcoma Initiative The 2008 Team Sarcoma Initiative is an internationally coordinated set of events to raise awareness of sarcoma and raise funds to support sarcoma research, clinical trials, and patient and family services. The 2008 Initiative consists of the "core" Team Sarcoma Bike Tour (which will be held in Germany and Austria biking along the Danube River from Passau, Germany to Vienna, Austria during July 12-19, 2008) and various local Team Sarcoma events that will be held worldwide during the same week. The Team Sarcoma Initiative has become an International Sarcoma Awareness Week with over 3,400 people participating in it worldwide in 2007. While the members of the "core" Team Sarcoma are cycling along the Danube River, they will be joined by people participating in various local events in the cities and countries where they live on one or more of the days during July 12-20, 2008. People are in the process of planning Team Sarcoma events in various countries and sates within the United States to be part of the 2008 Initiative. If you are interested in learning what's involved and forming one of the local Team Sarcomas, please contact us. In order to give the planners of local Team Sarcomas more flexibility in planning their activities, the official dates of the 2008 Team Sarcoma Initiative are July 12-20, 2008. Click here to learn more about the Team Sarcoma Bike Tour along the Danube River.
The Faces of Sarcoma Project As mentioned in the above article, the Team Sarcoma Initiative is an internationally coordinated set of events to raise public awareness of sarcoma and help raise funds to support sarcoma research. The mantra of the Team Sarcoma Initiative is "Sarcoma Knows No Borders". We use this phrase because sarcomas can occur anywhere in the body and they don't discriminate on age, gender, race or nationality (see article below). We are updating the video presentation "A Forgotten Cancer" which contains basic information about sarcoma and the Team Sarcoma Initiative. We are also producing a complementary video presentation called "The Faces of Sarcoma". We ask sarcoma patients, caregivers, and survivors to send us photographs that they would like included in "The Faces of Sarcoma Project. The early response to our request for photos to be included in "The Faces of Sarcoma" has been wonderful. We have received photos from people across the globe. You can view them in a traditional "gallery" format until the video presentation is made by clicking here. You can click on any thumbnail to view the complete photograph. Also, there is a search function in the lower left hand corner of each page. We encourage you to visit the gallery as you may recognize some of the people there. Each person has furnished the photo, proof-read the caption, and agreed to let us use it. If you would like to have your photo included Please send us a JPG of the photo that that you would like us to use as an attachment to your e-mail and not embedded in it. Higher resolution photos work better. Please complete the following caption: First name, age in photo, specific type of sarcoma, country. We should also mention that there are four additional translations of "A Forgotten Cancer" underway -- one in Dutch, Turkish, Russian and Hebrew. When they are completed, “A Forgotten Cancer” presentation will have been translated into 11 languages. It now appears in English, Chinese, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Polish, and Spanish and has been viewed 10 of thousands of times.
The "Sarcoma Knows No Borders" Bracelet We have received such an incredible response to the "Sarcoma Knows No Borders" bracelets, that we thought we should mention them again. We have received over 7,500 requests from all over the world for them. The background color of the bracelet is a swirl of a pathology slide of a sarcoma patient. The bracelet is reversible. "Sarcoma Knows No Borders" is printed on one side and the word "sarcoma" is printed in 13 of the world's languages on the other side. We use the phrase "Sarcoma Knows No Borders" because sarcomas can occur anywhere in the body and they don't discriminate on age, gender, race or nationality. Each bracelet is individually packaged and comes with a brief "Sarcoma Facts" sheet. Many boys and girls and teenagers wear them as an ankle bracelets. If you are interested in obtaining some of these bracelets, please send us a note by clicking here. You might also want to read about our "Sarcoma Knows No Borders" ribbon by clicking here.
Three Photos of the "Sarcoma Knows No Borders" Bracelets Music CD, The Circle, Benefits Sarcoma Research Singer songwriter Ron Martin is a multi-instrumentalist from North Carolina. He is sharing the proceeds from the sale of his CD, The Circle, with the Liddy Shriver Sarcoma Initiative to help fund sarcoma awareness and research. The CD makes a very nice holiday, birthday, anniversary or graduation gift. Click here to find out more details.
Clinical trial abstracts now exceed 250 We have collected and summarized information on over 250 clinical trials that sarcoma patients may be eligible to participate in. Some of the trials are for specific sarcomas while others cover several sarcomas. Each trial has its own eligibility requirements. The data has been collected from sources in different countries. We have grouped the studies into three categories:
You can access any of these webpages by clicking one of the above links. Some hints for searching our clinical trial abstracts are found by clicking here.
If you haven't read the entries in our Guest Book recently, you may want to do so (please click here). We also invite you to make an entry (please click here).
V5N1 ESUN Copyright © 2008 Liddy Shriver Sarcoma Initiative. |
On
January 25th, 2008 over 250 family and friends gathered at the First Annual
James Stulce Memorial Dinner Dance and Silent Auction in St. Louis, MO.
James, a 28 year old banker and college student, lost his very short battle
to 
When Mary Sorens
(photo at left), the founder of the online support group
