Fun Affairs from a Motivated Educator and a Dream Fund

Jenna Scarsi, a diabetes educator from the Chicago area with type 1 diabetes, recently won the Bayer Dream Fund, an annual $100,000 fellowship to help people accomplish something “that might not have been possible unless they were in control of their diabetes.” The fund is helping Jenna to expand a program she created a few years ago called Lights, Camera, Cure. What was an annual, mostly local event can now be bimonthly and in various cities across the U.S. Scarsi’s events are geared toward kids and consist of small diabetes health fairs followed by family movies, for which the events are themed. For example, the next event, in Philadelphia in June, will show Surf’s Up, a mockumentary slated for release this summer about surfing penguins, so activities at the event will include a hula-hoop contest and other island-inspired adventures. Two aspects we love differentiate Scarsi’s events. The people providing information at each of the fair’s stations (“what is diabetes,” pumping, exercise, BG monitoring, and so on) are not educators or doctors, but “youth advocates,” or young people ages five to 21 with diabetes. Also, the money raised stays in the city in which it was raised – a hospital’s diabetes unit, a diabetes center, or anything that “does something positive for the diabetes community” in that city, says Scarsi. Scarsi says she created the program because it’s “one thing to know what we have to do to intensively manage our diabetes, and it’s another thing to do it on a daily basis.” Upcoming events will also be in Philadelphia in June Portland (with a Grease sing-along), Nashville (likely with an IMAX showing of Polar Express), and San Antonio. Details can be found at www.lightscameracure.com, and if you’re interested in applying for your own Dream Fund, applications are now being accepted at www.bayerdreamfund.com/tellusurdrea_form.php.