Christmas Donations for Celiac Disease

• Internet: "Every blog and web site on the Internet was talking about it" is how one person put it - some of the sites that have linked to it include USAToday, NYTimes, FoxNews, Slashdot (six times), DIGG (five times), Fark (three times), MajorGeeks. Some prominent non-US sites include The Inquirer (England), Heise (Germany) Index.hu (Hungary), and MBnet.fi (Finland). It was one of the top-two clicked-thru stories on CNN.Com, Foxnews.Com, and WSJ.Com on Dec 28th, 2004.
• Print: Numerous stories all over the place. Local coverage since 2002, but it exploded in 2004 when it went out on the AP (inter)national wire (twice!) and also in TIME Magazine. In 2005, it hit front page of Denver Post/Rocky Mountain News, Longmont, and Boulder papers, plus Washington Post - read more here.
• Radio: There was dozens of live interviews in various markets (not one, but two in Perth Australia - declined BBC request due to time zone) in 2004 and a snippet on NPR Morning Edition. Half-dozen live interviews in 2005 plus who knows how many others mentioned the Christmas Lights webcam.
• TV: Detailed coverage by several major Denver stations - again, who knows how far that was all re-broadcast. And heck, ABC even took me up in their helicopter for a live report on the 6:00 News. View some of the TV coverage here.

So are you interested is having your company name listed on the Christmas Lights web pages ... and helping out a good charitable cause? I'm not a lawyer/PR/marketing/whatever person, but lets make this real easy. First, read about the University of Maryland Center for Celiac Research and then donate online at their web site and in the comments, say "I like Alek's Christmas Lights" ... and forward me the confirmation Email. I'll add your name/company (maximum 3 words and must be family friendly) to the web pages listed above after Halloween/2006 and it will stay there until November/2007. There is no promises, guarantees, whatever on how many web hits and/or media coverage will happen.

Donation levels are: $100 (individual), $1,000 (company with link), $10,000 (company with link and similar-size logo). Contact me with any questions/comments, but THAT is the "deal" - i.e. it's real simple and don't bother me (or the fine folks at the Celiac Research Center) with your lawyers, 50-page contracts, or any of that crap. I reserve the right to decline any ad and/or change these terms and conditions ... but highly doubtful that will happen.

Christmas Lights for Celiac Disease raised $6,389 in 2006 after pulling in $3,731 for 2005. And in another one of my off-beat fund-raisers, $5,141.50 was won a Google contest plus another $1,000 in a second one for the CFCR. Plus toss in another $406 from the Hulk'in Lemonade Stand! I.e. all this zany stuff has raised over $16,000 toward Celiac Disease Research - help make it more!

My kids (that's Dirk, Kyle, and their Big Green Buddy in the picture) have Celiac Disease which is an autoimmune disorder triggered by the protein gluten found in wheat, rye, barley and possibly oats. Similar to diabetes, you don't grow out of this ... and there is no cure short of going on a strict gluten-free diet. So while low-carb diets are the rage these days, it's a bit of a challenge when the kids go to events such as birthday parties (cake is a no-no unless made with rice flour) or after school/sports gatherings at a pizza joint. There's a LOT more I could write (spending 4 days at Children's hospital for "failure to thrive" is no fun), but the kids are doing great now, mostly thanx to the great efforts by my wonderful wife Wendy. Hopefully when my kids grow up, they will be able to go out with (old) Dad not only for (corn chip) Nacho's and Margarita's (Tequila is OK), but also Burgers (with a real bun) and Beer! ;-)