Thank you, New Jersey 
What an absolutely fabulous day it was on Sunday at the Atlantic Health Jets Training Center.

This is called stealing.  Yes.  It’s the thank you I want to write but the graphics from the Alliance for Lupus Research are just better than mine and they got their pictures ready first   Besides I didn’t want another day to go by after you saw last night’s newscast of the Walk with Us to Cure Lupus report, without saying, “Thank you”.  So I called to ask permission to use parts of the thank-you page to say the same thing and get accurate statistics on just how good you did in donations and support for such a significant cause.

Not only was it a great day, but we had a fantastic turnout of an estimated 2,000 people representing 112 teams all walking for a cure for lupus! 

Incredible Fundraising!
Preliminary counts indicate that we have raised more than $250,000, a quarter of a million dollars or enough to fund on researcher for a year, any way you say it, IT’S A LOT OF MONEY. That’s not the final count because money is still flowing in.  We are diligently working on processing and posting all the money that was turned in. Money collected on Sunday will be posted to the ALR Walk website as soon as possible.  If you were unable to make it to the ALR Walk and have donations to turn in (or if you have some late donations) please write your walker ID number on each check, fill out the pledge form and mail your donations to:

Alliance for Lupus Research
NNJ Walk
28 West 44th Street, Suite 501
                                                                                                                         New York, NY 10036

Thanks To You!

Thanks to all of our volunteers who worked so hard to make the day run so smoothly not to mention the 2009 Planning Committee who dedicated hours of their time in to making the event a huge success. We would like to especially thank our 2009 ALR Walk Corporate Chairman, Joe Trunfio, President and CEO of Atlantic Health for his leadership.  I was lucky enough to serve as this year’s Celebrity Chairman and got to emcee the opening ceremony.   Thanks to 2009 Honorary Co-Chairs, New York Jets Head Coach, Rex Ryan and General Manager, Mike Tannenbaum for their support.  Bravo to Kerry Neinstedt for so beautifully singing the National Anthem and to Caribbeat for entertaining our walkers as they returned from the walk.  And to Kelly Fund for Lupus Volunteers, Ronni Shapiro, Elizabeth McKnight, Norma Walker, Kristin Ritter of Newscorp, Russ Salzberg of My9 and his family, special guests from Elizabeth New Jersey and many many more!

Kudos to our sponsors Atlantic Health, The New York Daily News, Hess, Saint Barnabas Health Care System, New York Jets, Chubb, Novartis, My 9, Riker, Danzing, Scherer, Hyland and Perritti, DataPipe, Verizon, and Consultants in Autoimmune Research.

Three cheers to our wonderful team captains for inspiring and motivating their friends, family and co-workers to raise hundreds of thousands of dollars for lupus research.

Thank you! Gracias! Merci!  In any language, we thank you from the bottom of our hearts for your dedication, commitment and VERY hard work!  And thanks ALR for letting me heist your page and some of your words for continuing a worthy cause!