The MDA ALS Support Group Meetings have been going on since 1998, when Joyce Okahashi and I first started it. As all support group meetings, attendance waxes and wanes. However, one thing is very clear: this support group has a life of its own, continuing through the years. Why? It's because of the people who make it up. They have been part of it, first, as members who have loved ones with ALS, but after their loved ones have passed, they remained active in the cause because of the friendship that has formed from being part of a wonderful group of caring people. This legacy could be yours, too. Friendships are not to be taken for granted. They cannot be bought; they are priceless.
This upcoming meeting will need your valuable input as we try to organize our life with ALS, using Support Group Meetings as a tool to help us cope with that life.
I will be facilitating this and other meetings in the future until MDA comes up with a Health Care Services Coordinator. I offered to continue facilitating the meetings as a volunteer for the following reasons:
1. the recent MDA administrative realignments;
2. to assist our lovely friend, MDA-HAWAII ED Jade Guess, provide the heartfelt service we all need;
3. to save our ALS community's access to the gorgeous QCC (including Harvey, of course
); and
4. to continue providing a SG service to the East, Central and Windward areas of Oahu.
Please help us inform other people of this development. We will also try something new at the end of the meeting (*Teaser
).
Come. Join. Be part of what could be something you will be proud of the rest of your life.
