Angelman Today January / February edition 2014 | Page 41

with the enormous responsibility of caring for their Angel for a solid week. So, we're also providing a male and female caregiving team, who are certified special needs caregivers and who have experience with caring for people with Angelman Syndrome, for the entire week as a help team to whomever the parents designate as their caregiver for the week. We want it to be a week off for the Angel too. The team will take the Angel to the park or the zoo or a museum, each of the seven days. An activity for each day will be chosen in coordination with the parents and the parents' designated caregiver ahead of time. Our team will be there to help in every way possible. There will be skype and face time available any point the parents want to check in. We want them to feel good about the hands their Angel is in. We want them to relax. We want the Angel to have a great time as well. We hope to make this a biannual thing eventually or (my personal goal) make it a monthly thing. But this year we'll start with one family and see how it goes. Yolanda and I don't want to be involved in choosing the family, so we're making it a contest of sorts through the new publication Angelman Today. We're asking those interested in applying to write a five hundred word (or less) essay on their Angelman Journey. We want to hear your story. We're asking that all applicants have an Angel over the age of five-yearsold. The first 50 will be accepted. Then a panel made up of one of our board members, a representative from Special Olympics, a representative from Best Buddies, a representative from Make A Wish and Lizzie Sordia, managing editor of Angelman Today, will decide on the winning applicant. The Live In The Vineyard event takes place twice a year. Once in April and once in November. We will coordinate with the winning family as to which week they'd like to do. Then ..the fun begins. There are so many heavy things Angelman families deal with on a daily basis. There are so many heavy things the Angelman community is trying to collectively achieve for our children. We know this and we are in it with you. But sometimes it's important to get away, drink some wine and get lost in a song or two. This is the world Yolanda and I know and it's something we can offer. We appreciate Angelman Today for helping us coordinate the contest. We believe it's going to be a wonderful experience for one deserving family. Our prayer is that in the future we can make something like this happen for every Angelman family. You can enter your essay at: [email protected] AD