It's the holiday season and we love to bake and decorate cookies! We wanted to deliver something sweet to the team at SAFAR, the Stanford Alliance for Food
Allergy Research to say "Thank you!" for all their important work. This program at Lucile Packard Children's Hospital at Stanford is currently running clinical trials to desensitize people from their food
allergies. SAFAR is a cause that is important to ChAngels because two ChAngels, Nicole & Lisa, had life-threatening peanut allergies.
Over the course of the trial, Lisa & Nicole ate a prescribed number of peanuts, which increased gradually over time, until they were reaction free and both tested negative for peanut allergies. They have to eat a certain amount of whatever their food allergen is (in this case peanuts) every day
to keep up their tolerance. It is new, life-saving technology and is currently the closest thing to a cure
that there is for food allergies. We can now do so many more things and no
longer have to constantly worry about what they are eating. (We also rolled coins and were surprised, again, at how those coins can add up so quickly. In this case, $200 for SAFAR!)
ChAngels loves the work at Fisher House a "home away from home" for the families of patients receiving medical care at military and VA medical centers. There are currently 58 Fisher Houses all around the country, where more than 160,000 families have stayed free of charge since 1900, and many more under construction. We love the Fisher House motto, "Because a Family's Love is Good Medicine," and we wanted to help the kids celebrate Halloween by providing goodie bags for them and their visiting friends.
We were proud to co-host the grand opening ceremony for the "Fisher House Market,"a playhouse in the Fisher House playground. We provided market items (plastic fruits and foods) for the kids to play with and baked cookies and provided drinks for the dedication.
We smile every time we drive by the VA Hospital & Fischer House in Palo Alto, and were happy to learn about the care available to those who have so bravely served our country.
