Dear Friend,

We’re here to help you. If Alzheimer’s disease has touched your life, I hope you have found similar help from the Alzheimer’s Association^®. I know anyone who has experienced this disease first hand shares our vision of a world without this devastating disease. Today, we need your help to meet a nationwide $700,000 Gift Challenge as we continue our work to make a difference for more than a half million people affected by Alzheimer’s disease in Illinois.:

Here’s a few of the ways we’re here to help:
•    Our 24/7 Helpline answers your questions or helps you through a crisis…anytime, day or night. Last year alone we took a total of 7,651 calls. 4,582 of these Helpline requests required follow up by Chapter staff via phone, email and mail…an increase of 10% from the previous year.
•   Alzheimer’s Association Medic Alert Safe Return^® program; 135 new individuals were enrolled last year bringing the total number enrolled to 3,414 in our Chapter service area.
•   Providing funds for much needed research…this year, five researchers in Illinois were given grants to further their work.

Three generous benefactors of the Alzheimer’s Association; the Johnston Family and the Simmons Foundation of Missouri, the Borman Family of Maine and the Cahn Family of New York have agreed to collectively give $700,000 to the Alzheimer’s Association if we raise this same amount by June 15. All three of these donors feel strongly about the advancement of Alzheimer’s research, and so their generosity is going to support the Dominantly Inherited Alzheimer Network (DIAN), which focuses on a form of Alzheimer’s caused by rare genetic mutations that guarantee a person will develop the disease. People with dominantly inherited Alzheimer’s develop symptoms at a young age — usually when they are in their 40s and 50s, but sometimes as early as their 30s. This form of Alzheimer’s comprises about 1 percent of cases worldwide. Funding this project will allow us to learn a great deal more about the vast majority of people whose Alzheimer’s develops as a result of complex interactions among their genes, life experiences and other factors.

As you can see we need your help to make the most of this $700,000 challenge. Imagine, your gift of $25 can become $50 and $50 can double to $100. In fact, any amount you send by June 15 can go twice as far to move our mission forward and double the impact we make together in the fight against Alzheimer’s disease.

Spring is the season of promise, when everything seems possible. Help us make a world without Alzheimer’s possible by supporting this critical Matching Gift Challenge.