AudreySpirit blog

A few weeks ago I was invited to talk on our local NPR radio station's Up To Date Program hosted by Steve Kraske and was joined by Dr. Jeff Hornsby, Interim Director, Regnier Institute for Entrepreneurship and Innovation UMKC;  Ryan Bennett, Vice President of Idle Smart; and Mike Farmer - CEO of Leap.it. One of the radio program listeners, an executive of an apparel manufacturing company with international reach, contacted me to offer AudreySpirit his help (as a personal philanthropic gesture!). I met with him and the level of executive and practical guidance he's willing to provide and connect me to "insiders" is no less...

The Association of Maternal and Child Health Programs (AMCHP) works hard to advance each state's public health initiatives according to Maternal and Child Health (MCH) Bureau standards. Audrey led me to a new world of advocacy for children and youth with special health care needs that has morphed into state and national level advocacy opportunities which include adults.  Here you can read more about how I got involved, and how you can too! http://www.amchp.org/AboutAMCHP/Newsletters/Pulse/Archive/2014/MayJune2014/Pages/Real-Life-Story.aspx  

The logo is an evolution of a drawing created by Audrey Grace. As Donna recollects: “The logo is an abstract design by graphic artist, Lee Orrison, based on an original artwork Audrey created. Children’s Mercy Hospital's Teen Advisory Board (TAB) was involved in a project to update posters in the hospital cafeteria. As a member of the board, Audrey brought posterboard home from the teen meeting and drew the picture of a cheerful, welcoming and colorful mouse with an elaborate background. At the following TAB meeting, she turned in her mouse poster. It was mounted in a prominent location in...

About Autoimmune Disease"Autoimmunity is really complex and the group of conditions that fit within autoimmunity are very diverse. They often don’t have a ‘name’ that people recognize and are often really hard to explain. They are not ‘contagious’ – like many people think about ‘diseases’ but are life altering, lifelong and, in the most severe cases, life threatening."  Mara Becker, MD and Keith Mann, MD were gracious enough to share this information about autoimmune disease to help kids understand it better.  Both doctors took great care of Audrey and are among her biggest heroes. Audrey's school peer and dance colleague, MiKaylee, is working...