I am typing this from the comforts of my own bed in Sacramento. We made it home safe and sound.
There is more to come, I want to tell you about the conference, it was a blast. Stay tuned!
I am typing this from the comforts of my own bed in Sacramento. We made it home safe and sound.
There is more to come, I want to tell you about the conference, it was a blast. Stay tuned!
Hey Folks. I was on the radio this morning talking about Ride Ataxia and Team FARA. Click HERE to listen.
Check out this article by Dave Moller at The Union. Nicely done as always: Ataxia Rider on the Attack
Its payoff time! Now is when we can see the tangible impact of the Ride Ataxia efforts! Today FARA and NAF announced funding of the 4th, 5th and 6th Ride Ataxia research grants. Funding of these three grants brings us to 6 grants totaling over $700,000 in three short years. With this announcement we can clearly see the difference that is made with our combined efforts. This research will advance potential treatments toward clinical trials so that they will soon be available for patients like me and many of my teammates. This research provides hope to all who are searching for a cure and we are all a part of that hope with participation in Ride Ataxia either as a donor, rider or volunteer.
Press Release:
The National Ataxia Foundation (NAF) and the Friedreich's Ataxia Research Alliance (FARA) announced today that, this year, they are co-funding two $120,000 Kyle Bryant Awards that are going to promising translational research in Friedreich’s Ataxia (FA). A third award will be funded by FARA for $120,000, made possible by sponsorship from Outback Steakhouse. One award is being made to Dr. Mark Payne of Indiana University School of Medicine, proposal titled “Optimizing delivery of frataxin using cell penetrant peptides”. The second award goes to Dr. Gino Cortopassi of the University of California Davis, proposal titled “Screening for mitofunctional Friedreich's Ataxia therapeutics”. The third will be granted to Dr. Marek Napierala from the University of Texas, MD Anderson Cancer Center, proposal titled “Crosstalk between microRNAs and iron metabolism in pathogenesis of Friedreich’s ataxia”. -->Read the entire press release.
From the previous post you know that The Ataxian documentary is in the running for a $50k grant from the Pepsi Refresh Project (refresheverything.com/theataxian).
The film needs this money because the footage will need sound and color work which will need to be contracted out. The cost will be roughly $50k. The voting will be open for a few more weeks and the top 10 ideas with the most votes will be awarded $50k.
Voting has been open since June 1 and your efforts to date have earned us a ranking of 21 out of hundreds of ideas. This is pretty awesome, thank you.
As a reminder there are three ways to vote and you can do one or all three.
I want to address #3 on this list because I think it is the key to success. With power votes, you enter the little code on the inside of the yellow cap and you can get 5, 10, 15, 25, 50 or 100 votes per code. But here's the kicker: you can power vote up to 10 times per day. So yesterday I did a little experiment. I went to the store and bought 10 Pepsi's (2 20 oz. and 8 2 liters) and I power voted 10 times. In the end I got a total of 165 votes. We are currently 21st and we need to get into the top 10. I am confident that power votes are needed to get there. I am not suggesting that we do not need the single votes because we need it all and I am not suggesting that you go out and buy 10 Pepsi's each every day, I just wanted to bring attention to power votes and how they might benefit our effort. Even with one power vote per day you will at the very least have 5 votes per day instead of one.
For those who do not have any idea what a power vote is here is a little tutorial with help from refresheverything.com:
Look for power vote codes on specially-marked Pepsi products. Look for bottles with yellow caps or any Pepsi product that says "Power Votes" on it (limited to Pepsi, Diet Pepsi, and Pepsi Max). The Code will be under the bottle cap or printed on the inside of your multi-pack. For example:
Click Image For Larger View |
After you have located your Power Vote Code visit refresheverything.com/theataxian:
Above the big button that says VOTE FOR THIS IDEA is a link with the text "Power Vote For This Idea", click that link:
You will be taken to a page that looks like the one below. Click on the Button That says "Sign In."
You will be given the choice to sign in with Facebook or through Pepsi. However you must login with Pepsi to enable power voting. So if you have a Pepsi login choose "Sign in with Pepsi." If you don't already have a Pepsi login choose "Sign up", you only have to give them your first name, last name, email and birth date to create an account.
Sign up screen:
The "Prove you're not a robot" code is a little tricky sometimes but keep trying, you'll get it.
After you are logged in you will find a screen that will allow you to enter your power vote code:
Enter your code and click "Activate." Pepsi will work it's magic as it determines the value of your code. This one was worth 15 votes:
Now click link that says "return to your last idea." It may take you to The Ataxian idea page (this is where you want to be) or it may take you to "secure.refresheverything.com/index" if it does this just replace the word "index" with "theataxian" so you end up at "secure.refresheverything.com/theataxian" which should look like this:
Click on the big yellow button that says "Power Vote" aaand your power votes will be applied to The Ataxian! You just multiplied your vote by at least 5!
If you have more than one code you are not done! Simply click on the link to the lower right that says "Activate Power Voting" which will bring you back to the screen where you can enter another code!
The Pepsi site is a little finicky sometimes and it may log you out from time to time as you are going through the power voting process but just log back and keep plugging away. The time you spend on this is appreciated by thousands of people all around the world. Thank you for your time and effort.
Use up to 10 codes a day to help us get closer to the completion of this film and closer to a cure for FA!