5/29/2023 0 Comments May 2023 - "The P.E.I. Project" begins, updated donation total, the CLBDI Instagram, and more...Hello Lewy Warriors!
As May comes to a close and we are only days away from our founder Carol starting her adventure on Prince Edward Island walking the Island Walk trail to raise awareness about and funds for Lewy Body Dementia research, we are so happy to share that we've surpassed not one, not two, but THREE major donation milestones since February of this year. We are so overwhelmed by the generosity of our community and excited about our organic growth. Most of the last few months have been focused on preparing for "The P.E.I. Project", so to see this much of a bump in donations has been incredible. As of Friday, May 26th, we've raised $55,257 for Lewy Body Dementia research in Ontario. Simply AMAZING. Thank you to everyone who has donated, shared our story, or been involved with CLBDI in any way. We will be updating our donation total throughout the duration of Carol's walk across P.E.I. and into July so if you are interested in supporting Carol's journey, you can scan the QR code on the photo above, visit our donations page, or click this link: . In other news, we've launched our own Instagram account (@canadianlbdinfo) where you will be able to see photos from the trail, original content, and LBD information and resources posted regularly. If you're on Instagram, please consider giving us a follow and sharing some of our posts. Everything helps, no matter how little. CLBDI is a purely grassroots project with no sponsorships and we appreciate anything people do to help us gain visiblity. We've also added a few new LBD-related links and books to our ever growing LBD Resources page this past month. Be sure to check it out. In only a few days, our founder Carol will be boarding her flight and heading out on her adventure, but before that she wanted me to share a few words about "The P.E.I. Project". She writes, "My motto in life is “One day at a time” so I will enjoy each day as it comes. I am ready to meet amazing folks on this Island Walk, as it is officially known, and I know my Bob will be there with me. Thank you to everyone who has donated so far. See you when I get back." If you'd like to see some views from the Island Walk trail and get an idea of where Carol will be walking, check out this beautiful video from Osprey Cove Productions on YouTube. As far as next month goes... Our yearly donation from the Robert Edward Schmidt trust fund will be happening, as well as the delivery of some new original content that will take you into the world of LBD research, and you can expect regular updates to the website and Facebook. We'll also be sharing stories from the road, photos, and updates from Carol as she walks across Prince Edward Island. We're wishing Carol a safe, fun, and empowering walk as she readies herself for her walk. It's been amazing to see this come together and everyone, myself included, is so very proud of her. I hope she has a great time and meets tons of awesome new people. That's it for May. We'll see you at the end of June. Best, Joe
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Hello Lewy Warriors!
It's the end of another month and, as promised, we have LOTS of news to share. We hope everyone had a wonderful April. The warm weather is just around the corner and we can't wait for summer. First and foremost, we've updated the "LBD Resources" page of our website throughout the month and added a bunch of great links, articles, and new LBD-related books (including the latest release from our friend and Lewy Warrior J.J. Johnstone). We will be adding more to the site in the coming months and I suggest you check back regularly. We always welcome new suggestions and encourage people to send us anything you feel that should be on the page or things that we may have missed via our website's contact boxes, Facebook, or email. Now, on to the exciting stuff! We are thrilled to announce our first Summer event - "The P.E.I. Project"! Our founder Carol is going to be walking P.E.I.'s answer to the El Camino trail in Spain to raise funds for and awareness about Lewy Body Dementia! She will be travelling solo and updating us every few days with pictures, stories, and news from the trail that we will be sharing online for everyone to see. The whole event will be a month-long trek across the island from June 1st until July 2nd. Instead of creating a Gofundme or other online fundraiser, Carol would prefer that donations be made to Dr. Pasternak's LBD Research at University of Western Ontario via their direct donation (you can do so here). Ashely, our fantastic liaison at UWO will be updating us every two weeks with our new donation total so that we can track what we've raised from today onwards. Over the next week or two, more information will become available on our website and Facebook pages, including a digital flyer with a QR code that links directly to the donation site. This is a huge undertaking and we're so excited and proud of Carol. We hope everyone will share our updates and promotional materials far and wide to show her how much we support her and everyone else who has been affected by Lewy Body Dementia. Because of this, we will also be launching our Instagram account this month! We havre plans to branch out to other social media platforms in the coming months and to release more original videos on our YouTube channel. Please consider subscribing if you're interested in more great content. We've got lots in the works. We are also looking at hosting or being a part of more community events over the summer and into the fall. More information will be coming your way soon but, for now, our focus is on this walk. We wanted to thank everyone who follows us or has joined our cause over the last few years and we can't wait to see what the summer months bring. We have a wonderful growing community and, although we are "small potatoes" as Carol always says, we can see that we are making some actual change and helping in the race to better understand LBD. We're hoping to pass some major milestones by the end of the summer but we can't do it without your help. Every donation, like, share, comment... it all helps! No matter how small. That's all for today! Keep an eye out for more info on "The P.E.I. Project" and our new social media links! Best, Joe Daniel 3/31/2023 0 Comments March 2023 - The CLBDI YouTube launch, "Beneath The Surface In Waterloo" recap, and what we've got coming next...Hello Lewy Warriors!
Can you feel it? The weather is warming up and spring is right around the corner. We've got some amazing things planned for when the sun is out but, for now, we'd like to recap our March and tease some exciting news about what we've got coming up. Firstly, early this month we launched our YouTube channel and the first CLBDI webinar! We have been getting some great feedback and are already planning our next video. In this webinar, we cover some general information about Lewy Body Dementia, share some tips on caring for yourself as a carer and your Loved One with LBD, and offer suggestions on how you can help both at home and in the wider community. If you haven't had a chance to check it out here. Be sure to give us a follow and, if you're feeling generous, a like/share. Everything helps. We also wanted to share a thank you to Mt. Zion church and staff for allowing us to be a part of their "Beneath The Surface In Waterloo" Lent speaker series. We had a wonderful time speaking about our LBD journey, sharing our experiences, explaining our mission, and talking with members of the church and community. Thank you to everyone who attended, those who made a donation in the days after our presentation, and for all your kind words. We will be out and about in the community more in the near future and can't wait to meet more amazing people like you. As for our summer plans? Well, our founder Carol is planning something really amazing for our summer fundraiser and we cannot wait to announce it in April. No, it's not another art show... though we are looking at doing another show sometime in the future. We also hope to host some events in the region and, as previously mentioned, get out into the community and speak more. Keep your eyes on our Facebook page in the coming weeks. Lots to share. Thank you to everyone who has donated, shared, liked, or reached out to us in March. Our little project keeps growing and growing but only with the help of people like you. We're proud of our community and everything we've been able to do together. We'll see you in April. Best, Joe 2/26/2023 0 Comments February 2023 - Remembering Bob Schmidt, launching the CLBDI YouTube channel, surpassing our goals, and more.Hello Lewy Warriors! As promised in our last post, we have tons of stuff to share with you in this month's update! So let's get right to it... First and foremost, we wanted to take a moment to remember and honour the life of Robert "Bob" Schmidt who passed away on February 8th, 2020. Bob's Lewy Body Dementia diagnosis and LBD journey helped catalyze the creation of CLBDI. He was a beloved husband, father, grandfather, and so much more. Everything we do, we do for him and others like him. You can visit Bob's 2021 memorial here. You can read the article about Bob, "Remembering Bob Schmidt, Lewy Warrior", from Valerie Hill at The Waterloo Record here: https://www.therecord.com/.../remembering-bob-schmidt-a... In loving memory of Robert "Bob" Schmidt. June 28, 1944 - February 8, 2020 Secondly, in case you missed it, the good folks over at UWO have created a secondary donation page for donations made in memory of a Loved One. We've seen an increase in people wanting to create fundraiser in memory of a Loved One and people asking how to properly include options for donations in the obituary and/or at the funeral. This new site streamlines the whole process and makes it much easier for everyone. If you wish to set up a fundraiser in the name of a loved one who has recently passed but don't know where to start, please don't hesitate to reach out to us via email or messenger. We have updated the CLBDI website to feature both the new personal donation landing page and the new memorial donation page. In other news, we FINALLY have an in-person Lewy Body Dementia presentation coming up next month! This marks our first official LBD presentation since 2019 and (hopefully) the first of many this year. Carol, our founder, is going to be speaking at Mt. Zion church in Waterloo on Wednesday, March 22nd as part of their "Beneath The Surface In Waterloo" series. If you're a member of the church, want to book a presentation, or are interested in more information, please send us an email. We're super excited to get out in the community, educate, advocate, and meet some new people. Another amazing announcement we have for you is that we have raised more than our goal of $40,000.00 in total donations and our new donation total, as of earlier this month, is around $41,550.00. We also know that we have since surpassed that number and are on our way to our next goal of $45,000.00! We expect to reach it before the end of the year. Thank you again to everyone who has donated or been a part of this journey. We couldn't do it without you!
Lastly, our YouTube account is going to be going live in two days! We'll be sharing the link and information on our Facebook page and website on Tuesday, February 28th. The first video will be a digital version of our LBD presentation and we have plans to publish interviews, behind-the-scenes videos, vlogs, and more LBD-related content. Please consider giving us a like and follow and share our first video! We hope you've had a wonderful month and managed to stay out of all the bad weather we've had. We've got lots more coming in March! See you in a month, Joe Hello Lewy Warriors!
We're here with another monthly update! We hope your 2023 has started off on the right foot and that all is well for each and every one of you. Although we don't have too much to share this month, we've been busy working away on new LBD content and planning some amazing fundraising events for the summer. We're also working on booking some more live events and presentations for the spring, so you might see us out in the community sooner rather than later. There will be a lot more information about these events coming in next month's blog post. We can share that our YouTube channel will be going live in a few weeks with the launch of our first digital Lewy Body Dementia presentation. We have plans to create more video content including interviews, vlogs, educational videos, and more in the coming year. We've also added some of our CLBDI literature (in downloadable PDF format) to our website for free. Last month also saw the launch of our first run of CLBDI cards and we're happy to say that inventory is running out. Half of all sales will be donated in March. If you'd like to learn more about the cards and place an order, or take a look at our CLBDI merchandise before they're out of stock, be sure to visit our Community page. If you're looking for more LBD-related content, we are always updating our LBD Resources page and are constantly sharing great resources, posts, and information over on our Facebook page. Lastly, we have our fingers crossed and are waiting for confirmation that we have surpassed $40,000.00 in total donations. When it is confirmed, it will be shared on our Facebook page and included in the following month's blog post. Even if we are still slightly under the $40k mark, we wanted to thank every single person who donated their time, energy, or money to our cause. It's still so amazing to us that we've been able to do so much in the past few years with the help of our great community. We're grateful for everyone who has crossed paths with us in any way. Alright. I think that's it for this month. Be sure to check out our YouTube channel when it launches and have a great February everyone! Best, Joe 12/31/2022 0 Comments December Update - Onwards To 2023!Hello Lewy Warriors! This is our last blog post for 2022 and we thought that we would recap our amazing year and show our gratitude to everyone involved in CLBDI (including our amazing community). If you want an in-depth look at everything we've done this year, I recommend browsing the archived blog posts of 2022, which can be found at the bottom of the CLBDI Blog page. First and foremost, we hope that you had a Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays! We hope it was spent having fun with your friends and family. Even though we had some rough weather in the region, we still managed to find some joy and comfort this holiday season and we hope that you did too. I guess we should start off with our new donation total! At the start of the month, Ashley, our liaison at UWO let us know that we were sitting at $38,261.00 in total donations! WOW. We're so excited to see that we've passed our goal of $35,000.00 and are nearing our next milestone! We've also been informed that there have been some donations later in the month that put us over $38,500.00. That means that this year we raised around $10,000.00 this year! Amazing! We don't know the exact number right now but we're confident that we will surpass $40,000.00 early in the new year. As always, we can't thank you enough for your support and your donations. To all the folks who have been a part of this journey, whether you attended a show (digitally or in person), are a member of our advisory team, donated your money or time, visited our site, or shared our information with someone in need... THANK YOU. We couldn't do it without you. Together, we are actually making change and helping to further understand, manage, and combat Lewy Body Dementia in our own community. We'd also like to say thank you to our UWO liaisons Emily and Ashley for all they've done this year (including the amazing new landing page for LBD donations) and for that lovely lunch we shared in May. It was so nice to finally meet you both. So, what did we do this year? Well, we donated the funds from our 2021 Holiday Fundraiser at the end of December 2021 and since then we have sold many CLBDI shirts. We've been donating 50% of all sales in small lump sums to Dr. Pasternak's LBD fund since the start of the year. Our annual donation from Bob's LBD Trust Fund was also made in June. In the summer, we launched our fabulous second online art show. It featured 8 amazing artists from all across Canada, The United States, and the UK. We wanted to take a moment to thank them all again for donating their artwork, time, and creative energy to our little project. We're constantly floored by the kindness and willingness of our friends and peers to join us on our mission to educate, fundraise, and advocate. That amazing online show lead to our first ever in-person art showing at Three Sisters Cultural Centre in October. It was so much fun and we're already planning on doing more live events in 2023. We wanted to thank everyone at Three Sisters for being such amazing hosts, helping us with the show, and having such a wonderful and inviting space. In February, we connected with Valeria Hill at the The Record to remember and honour Bob with "Remembering Bob Schmidt, a Lewy Warrior". The article was so wonderfully written and we appreciate every word. Throughout the year, we worked with Ashley and Emily to have the aforementioned landing page set up to make donating easier and finally got to meet them both in person. They've been instrumental to all we've been able to do and in connecting us to UWO. We also connected further with other LBD websites and communities like Forward With Dementia and The Purple Sherpa over the year and look forward to building those relationships more in 2023. We held many meetings with our Advisory Board, all of whom have given their time and advice to help us stay on track and grow. We wanted to say thank you to each and every one of them. We appreciate all that they do. Over the last few months, we've been working on plenty of great CLBDI content behind the scenes. We've also made some big plans for the new year that we can't wait to share. One of the first things that we've done is launch the first set of the CLBDI holiday/birthday cards! They come in four unique designs and can be purchased in packs of four or individually. More information and an order form can be found on our Community page. In conclusion, it has been a wonderful year and we cannot say thank you enough to everyone who has been involved. I'm sure that I've mentioned before that Carol, our founder, likes to say we're small but mighty. "We're just small potatoes," she often says, "but we should be proud of what we've done." I am. Very much so. I don't want to ramble here so I will keep it short. We appreciate all of your support and are grateful to have made an impact, whether it is by funding Dr. Pasternak's LBD research at UWO, connecting with fellow Lewy Warriors and their families, or simply giving people who are in search of information a place they can use on their LBD journey. We will have plenty more things to share in the early months of next year. For now, all we want to say is this:
Happy New Year. Thank you all for an amazing 2022. We wish you all the best in 2023. Cheers, Joe and the CLBDI team. 11/30/2022 0 Comments November UpdateHello Lewy Warriors!
November is at an end and we are moving into the final month of 2022. Unfortunately, we don't have much to share in this month's update because we have been dealing with illness and various other unforseen delays over the past few weeks. With that being said, we do have a few things to share with you about the coming months and we are back to going full steam ahead as the year comes to an end. As previously stated, we are choosing to forgo a Holiday Fundraiser this year. Instead, we are hoping that everyone will donate on their own time using the new direct donation landing page that was provided to us by Ashley and Emily at UWO. We will also be printing a limited run of CLBDI Holiday Cards that you will be able to purchase online (more on that next week). We still have some CLBDI shirts available in limited sizes too. They're a great holiday gift and are limited edition! We may never print more of this design so this is a chance to own a piece of CLBDI history and do some good! Half of all the money that we raise through card and shirt sales will be donated to LBD research at the end of the year. In the coming weeks, you will see that we will be adding a section for CLBDI literature to our website and will offer a selection of our printed resources in PDF format. This is for everyone outside of our region who might be interested in what we do and for those of you who want to help spread the message. We will also be sharing the new donation total at the end of this month or in early January. We're excited to see what we've been able to raise since the summer and are crossing our fingers that we've surpassed another one of our donations milestones. As mentioned in our previous blog post, we had planned to expand CLBDI to other platforms by the end of this month and have our presentation available on Youtube but, due to illness, we've been delayed. We've decided to take a bit more time to get it right, make sure everyone is back to full health, and make sure we're putting out the best possible content. So, with all that being said, we are now planning to branch out to other social media platforms in January and can't wait to share some original CLBDI content with everyone. We've been dealing with many setbacks this month and things have been fairly quiet but we promise that we have big plans for next year and plenty of things coming your way in December. We hope that everyone out there is happy, healthy, and staying positive. Thank you all for the support in 2022 and we'll see you again at the end of the year! 10/26/2022 0 Comments October Update - Merci Mille FoisGood afternoon Lewy Warriors!
October is coming to a close and we're feeling grateful, excited, and a little tired. It's been quite the busy month for us but we pushed through and are so happy to announce that we've raised $1,560.00 for LBD research through our online and in-person art show. That does not include some of the direct donations made in lieu of purchasing art so we're pretty sure that we've crossed the $35,000.00 mark in total donations. Unfortunately, we won't know exactly how much we've raised until the end of the year but we're hopeful, grateful, and proud of everything we've been able to do in 2022. Carol likes to say we're "small potatoes" and, while that may be true, I like to think of CLBDI as mighty too. I wanted to send out a sincere thank you to everyone who has donated, purchased artwork, visited our site, joined our online community, and shared in our common goal. We've got big plans for 2023 and hope you will be there to join us on our journey. As for the show itself... All I can say is wow! What a wonderful experience! We had so much fun at Three Sister's and met so many great new people. We even got to meet some Lewy Warriors who didn't know about CLBDI and got to share our experiences and stories. Thank you to the staff and everyone else who was involved. We were so lucky to be there on a beautiful and warm day where the sun was shining and the mood was high. Thank you to Dr. Pasternak for taking time out of his busy schedule to stop by and speak. Also, we want to send a huge thank you to all our friends and family who made the trek out to St. Jacobs. for the show We're definitely happy that some of the artwork sold but we're also happy that our goal of getting CLBDI out to the public again after so much time spent as a digital-only endeavour was met so warmly. It was a truly wonderful day and we hope to do more events like this one in the future. If you're ever in St. Jacob's and are looking to visit a real gem, stop by Three Sister's Cultural Centre. They have so much local artwork and the atmosphere is so welcoming. You can learn more about the gallery and browse the events they have coming up on their website. We also wanted to say thank you again to all the artists who donated their time, energy, creativity, and artwork to this year's show. Seeing the generosity of each and every one of you has been so moving and we appreciate you so, so much. You've allowed this year's show to be bigger, better, and more diverse. What's next? Well, we have some photos to share and some CLBDI original content coming your way a little later on in November before we move into the holiday season. Unlike previous years, we are not doing an online Holiday Fundraiser. Instead, we urge you to donate directly using the new direct donation landing page, which is now live and operational, to spread some cheer and do some good this Holiday season. The new direct donation page, which was spearheaded by Emily and Ashley, has made it so much easier to donate to Dr. Pasternak's Lewy Body Dementia research. We're so thankful to both Emily and Ashley for taking our, and by proxy your own, suggestions on how to improve the process and implementing it in such an awesome and practical way. That's all for this month. Have a safe and fun Halloween everyone. Best, Joe 9/30/2022 0 Comments September UpdateGood Afternoon Lewy Warriors!
Can you believe that the month is already over?! We're back with another monthly update and we have some great news! But first, we want to thank everyone for their patience as we dealt with some delays and interruptions over the past two months. We hope you have all had a great September and enjoyed the end of the summer. It's been a little stop and go for us but we're ready to travel full stream ahead into the holiday season. As previously stated, we've extended CLBDI's second digital art show to Thanksgiving weekend. Today, we're excited to announce that we're doing a one day in-person CLBDI event and art show at Three Sisters Cultural Centre in St. Jacob's, Ontario on the 22nd of October. This event will happen after the digital portion of the event is over and will feature presentations from our founder Carol and advisory board member and neurologist Dr. Pasternak, a look at our upcoming digital LBD presentation, new art pieces, drinks, snacks, and free CLBDI literature. It runs from 12 PM until 9 PM with drinks available and presentations happening after 5 PM. All art pieces that don't sell online will be available to purchase and, if your wall is full, we will also have a booth set up for donating to Dr. Pasternak's LBD research directly and a limited number of shirts available. Our show is also the same day as the Kissing Bridge Trail Studio Tour in St. Jacob's so there will be plenty of culture to take in and studios to visit. Best of all? It's free! We're working on (finally) getting original CLBDI content on to Youtube and our first LBD presentation will be available shortly after the art show. More information to come. We've also added a bunch of new links and resources to our LBD Resources page with more to be added in the coming months. If you have any suggestions or links that we should check out, please contact us through our website, email, or even a DM on Facebook. We're always looking to add more to our archive. We're also saying goodbye and sending best wishes to our UWO liaison, Emily Grass, as she moves to another position and welcoming Ashely Irvine back to the fold as our new liaison. Emily has been fantastic and we appreciate everything she has done for us. You can find all of Ashley's contact information on our LBD Research Fund page. One of the amazing things that Emily implemented before her departure is a new online landing page specifically for LBD donations that will be added online very soon. We're looking forward to seeing it go live and hope that it streamlines the donation process for everyone. We'll be back in a month with our usual monthly update plus a recap of the art show, new CLBDI content, and some ideas about what we're doing this holiday season. Have a wonderful October! Best, Joe 9/8/2022 0 Comments August UpdateHello Lewy Warriors!
We apologize for the lateness of this monthly update. As some of you may remember, we took a week off in the latter half of August and during that time I (the IT and social media manager) traveled to Portugal. It was an amazing trip but I unfortunately ran into some issues and was stuck in Portugal for longer than expected. As we mentioned on our Facebook Page last week, this meant that we were unable to fully open things back up at CLBDI until I returned. I'm home now and we're catching up on everything we missed. We have a few things to cover today so let's get to it! Firstly, due to the extended absence and so that we can maximize the reach of our show, we've decided to extend the second CLBDI digital art show until Thanksgiving! Now you all have more time to go and check out the amazing artwork donated by the many talented artists! Visit the CLBDI Online Gallery today and be sure to share the link to the show with friends and family. In related news, we are also toying with the idea of having a small, local, in-person viewing event at the end of the digital portion of the show. If this idea comes to fruition, we hope to invite everyone in the Waterloo Region to come and check out these amazing works of art in person. More information on that soon. Secondly, we unfortunately ran into some issues with our email account and have not had access to it since the 20th of August. We were unable to fix it until I had returned from Portugal but we managed to reach the people that we needed to speak with to get it fixed and the issue has since been resolved. We've been told that the email account should be up and running tomorrow evening. With that being said, if you have reached out to us during these past three weeks, we may not have received your email. If you don't hear back from us, please reach out again. We're so sorry for the lack of communication. We are still working on branching out to other social media platforms and getting our Youtube page up and running as well. We're obviously running a bit behind and playing catch up at the moment but we still have plans to expand to other platforms and bring you original LBD content. There will defintely be more information on CLBDI's next steps in the September update. Thank you to everyone who has purchased artwork, donated to UWO, and reached out to us in the past month. We're hearing more and more of your stories and connecting to more and more people who are on their own LBD journey. We are so grateful to be able to help everyone out, whether they just need someone to talk to, are looking for information about LBD, or are looking for resources in our community. We also have heard that some younger Lewy Warriors have been raising money and donating to UWO on our behalf and have joined London, who donated a piece to the art show, in raising funds and awareness about LBD. We wanted to thank them for their compassion and generosity. Together we really can make a difference. Ok, that is all for this month. We hope everyone has had a wonderful end to their summer and you are all looking forward to the coming holiday season(s). We sure are. All the best, Joe and the CLBDI Team |
AuthorThe CLBDI blog is run by Advisory Board member Joseph Daniel. Archives
December 2024
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