Epilepsy Awareness--Purple Day March 26th

Cari over at Bookscoops is hosting a mini-challenge in honor of Purple Day, an international day to promote epilepsy awareness held on March 26th. She's written a beautiful post about her reason for doing this--her daughter was diagnosed with epilepsy 5 months ago. She and I talked about it at the Utah Book Bloggers Winter Social because she overheard me tell someone that my son has epilepsy. I am so thrilled that she's taken the effort to promote Purple Day and I will try to do my part as well.

Here's how the mini-challenge works: (Taken from bookscoops.com)

"There are number of ways to participate in our first annual Purple Day Challenge and because we love to promote literacy we are combining both reading and Purple Day starting on March 21st and ending on March 31st. While our blog focuses on children and adolescent literature we are inviting anyone to go purple!!!! So that means any person, book blogger or blogger who wants to promote Purple Day may participate. To make this easy on you (and us) choose any or all of the following.

1. Post the Purple Day Button on your blog starting on Sunday March 21st through Saturday March 27th and write a post promoting Purple Day. Please note we have received permission to use the Purple Day logo as part of this challenge. If you choose this option you must read and agree to the copyright notice on the Purple Day website by using the logo you are stating that you have read and agree to their terms of use. Two sizes of buttons are at the bottom of this post.
   


2. Read a book about epilepsy and post a review. For a list of books for children go to Epilepsy.Com.


3. Read a book by or about a famous person with epilepsy and post a review. Cari’s daughter’s favorite so far is The Day-Glo Brothers: The True Story Behind Bob and Joe Switzer’s Bright Ideas and Brand-New Colors, which also is a Cybils winner for 2009. Some names you might know are Harriet Tubman, Alfred Nobel and Charles Dickens and more recently actor Danny Glover, football player Alan Faneca and track star, Florence Griffin Joyner known as Flo Jo. For a more complete list visit The Epilepsy Foundation or if you’re a fan of Wikipedia see the List of Famous people with Epilepsy, which to be honest seems to be the best documented list we’ve found so far.


4. Read a book that promotes self-confidence and acceptance in children and post a review. Suggested books so far with a very appropriate title, Purplicious by Victoria Kann and Elizabeth Kann and Little Skink’s Tail by Janet Halfmann, illustrated by Laurie Allen Klein.
   
5. If you or a family has dealt with epilepsy write a post sharing your experience.


6. Wear purple on March 26th and tell people why you are wearing purple.


7. Click on the link to watch the 60 Minute Special on Epilepsy and write about the things that you learned in a blog post, or if you don’t have a blog put it in the comments for this post.

Have an idea not listed above submit it and we’ll give you another entry. Cari’s niece is making 600+ purple ribbons for her school. So if you think of something put a comment in the comments below.

For every entry we receive, Cari will donate 25¢ per entry for a total of fifty dollars to a non-profit organization that works towards epilepsy awareness and/or research and Holly will match Cari’s donation. Multiple entries are possible. One entry equals doing one of the seven items listed above."

I've now posted about the challenge, I will wear purple on Friday and will get my kids to do the same, I hope to review a book or two about epilepsy or by someone with epilepsy, I will watch the 60 minutes special and report on it, and I will be writing a post on Friday to share my son's story. (The time period for the challenge is March 21st-31st)

I would encourage you to go to Cari's post and do what you can for this good cause. She has a lot of great information about this disorder and how it affects so many people, as well as several links to find more information.