About

What:

  In early spring, I showcase original, handmade quilts to be auctioned off in support of brain tumor research. At other times of the year, I'll be writing about commissioned quilts and quilts to come.

Why:
 This year, about 22,000 people (approximately 19,000 adults and 3,000 children) will be diagnosed with a malignant brain or spinal cord tumor.  This number would be much higher if benign tumors were included.  Yet, about 14,000 people will die from these tumors.  In children, brain tumors are the second most common cancer, but they are more deadly than the leading childhood cancer, leukemia.  Overall, the chance that a person will develop a brain tumor in his/her lifetime is less than 1%.
   (Source: American Cancer Society)

  Even though a brain tumor diagnosis is devastating, with many prognoses being extremely poor, funding for research is lacking.  Why?  Because it makes the most sense to cure the masses.  And with "only" 22,000 people being diagnosed with a brain tumor in the coming year, this cancer is not a
priority for the governmental and charitable organizations which fund the largest portion of research.

History:
Our "Charlotte's gRACE for a Cure" team participated in the Angels Among Us 5K and Family Fun Walk for the first time in 2012.  The team raised over $16,000 to contribute to a grand total of over $1.8 million for brain tumor research and patient care.

Charlotte and Lauren at Angels Among Us, 2012

  At the 2012 event, there was a beautiful quilt at the silent auction.  As a beginning quilter, I thought it might be neat to improve my skills and make a quilt for the auction for the following year. After a bit of thought, I decided to go even further than that by recruiting help.

Here's Charlotte modeling one of our 2013 quilts.

Between March 1 and April 20, 2013, we were able to auction eleven quilts through this little blog.  We also had a few quilts privately commissioned.  In total, this quilt auction brought in over $2,000 for brain tumor research at Duke University Medical Center and $1,000 specifically for the Pediatric Neuro-oncology Program.  This contributed to our team total of over $12,000 and a grand total of over $2 million at the Angels Among Us event on April 20, 2013.

The 2014 Quilt Auction will begin on March 31, 2014, and will benefit the Pediatric Brain Tumor Foundation.  To learn more about this year's auction, read this post.