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Please give to the 2007 Kids With Food Allergies annual holiday appeal!
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Dear Friend of Kids With Food Allergies,
Craig's story may be much like yours. Recently, he came to Kids With Food Allergies when his youngest son was diagnosed with multiple food allergies following a severe allergic reaction. As a parent of three other children, his family's world was turned upside down. How does a family of six adjust when one child has multiple food allergies? Could his baby have a cake for his first birthday? How will Craig feed his ten-month old, and how should the rest of the family deal with new food restrictions? How do they handle the fear?
Every week, Kids With Food Allergies welcomes new members like Craig, who are overwhelmed by a new diagnosis and wonder how to safely feed and care for their child. As you know, so many parents of newly diagnosed children want to talk with someone who really understands - another parent of a food allergic child - and that is what KFA does best. When a mom or dad of a newly diagnosed child asks for help, our online community connects them with other parents raising kids with food allergies - just like them - while our recipe database and educational materials help them manage food allergies right away.
As you know by now, KFA's strength is in using the power of the Internet to connect families with each other to share support, news, recipes and information in a responsible manner.
Our popular online support forums - which let you ask questions, research topics, and share support and understanding directly with other parents - provides a unique and valuable service for families nationwide. We've also made great strides offering more online information and resources for you in the past year, including:
- Free monthly e-newsletters and quarterly Support Net issues
- Sponsored Family Memberships
- Expanded recipe database
- Dozens of new educational articles
- Allergy alerts and buyer's guide
- Cooking contests
- Outreach to physicians and dietitians to help spread the word about KFA.
This good work would not have been possible without your financial support and the help of our dedicated and selfless volunteers - all while we've grown to more than 10,000 members and Web site visits now exceed 50,000 monthly. As food allergies continue their unprecedented rise, so has demand for our services. While our Board of Directors has been very mindful to fulfill its responsibilities as a good steward of funds raised, we could do so much more with more support from you.
With your help, and based on findings from a member survey earlier this year when we asked for your opinions and priorities, these are additional services we want to offer you in 2008:
- Twice-monthly e-newsletters: one focused on news, and one focused on food, cooking and recipes.
- Twice-yearly special reports on new allergy-friendly foods and products.
- More educational materials for the newly diagnosed and about nutrition, including resources for managing children's restricted diets and breastfeeding allergic babies.
- Web site upgrades to streamline membership registration and renewals.
Simply put, we are under-funded for our ambitious goals and need your help to make it happen.
We know our parent support community helps in a unique way, and we want to continue to enhance this and other services to meet the needs of our members. As one member told us,
"You guys have changed my life. Every time I think about how much you've helped me it brings tears in my eyes (like right now!). I would not have made it without you, trust me. Just knowing that someone out there was caring and could relate to my distress has lifted me above that black cloud of despair that kept coming back, each time something would go wrong with my kids' allergies... Thank you a million times!"
Based on the hundreds of wonderful notes like this we've received this year, we know so many are thankful for KFA. So, at this time of year when we are giving thanks, please say "Thank you, KFA!" with a donation to help support our work for 2008.
I urge you to give today - $25, $50, $100 or whatever is possible. This is our only donation drive for the year, so please give generously. One hundred percent of your gift will help KFA keep growing, and since KFA is a 501(c)(3) charity, your donation is tax-deductible to the extent of the law.
Please help us provide more for families by sending your gift of support today.
You may donate safely online , or you can donate by postal mail by sending a donation to:
Kids With Food Allergies, Inc.
73 Old Dublin Pike, Ste. 10, #163
Doylestown, PA 18901
[printable donation form]
Together, we can provide valuable online support and resources to a growing number of food allergy families nationwide.
Thank you and warm wishes for a wonderful Thanksgiving!
Kind regards,
Lynda Mitchell
KFA President and proud mom of a teenager with a severe milk allergy
P.S. We especially appreciate your gift to support our sponsored family membership program, which provides fee waivers to any family unable to afford the $25 cost of a Family Membership.
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