Nine Innovative Diabetes Advocacy Projects Receive Funding

Diabetes Hands Foundation Announces 2012 DHF Seeds Grant Awards Nationwide

BERKELEY, CA: August 1, 2012 – Nine innovative diabetes advocacy projects from across the U.S. have been selected by the Diabetes Hands Foundation to receive seed grants aimed at increasing their impact on the community and improving the lives of people with diabetes.

“Our goal is to support promising projects, and help advocates through grants that assist them in taking their projects to the next level,” explains Manny Hernandez, President and founder of the Diabetes Hands Foundation, which offered the $2,000 DHF Seeds Grants with the support of Sanofi US Diabetes.

The DHF Seeds grant recipients were selected by a panel of Diabetes Advocates organized by Diabetes Hands Foundation, and with the input of over 1200 votes from people who viewed dozens of video-proposals aimed at educating, empowering, and connecting people with diabetes.

Projects funded by DHF Seeds in 2012 include:

• Sweat-Betes, for production of an empowering series of exercise videos aimed at people living with diabetes. These videos, developed for people with beginner-to-intermediate levels of fitness, will present sound, medically-based instruction and information on how a person with diabetes can exercise safely.

• Drinking with Diabetes, for production of a guide on the health implications of drinking alcohol for college students living with diabetes. This guide is aimed at fostering healthful choices and a dialog about alcohol and diabetes between students and their families.

• You Can Do This, to broaden participation in an ongoing online project that connects people touched by diabetes. To date, You Can Do This has broadcast videos from over 90 people, each telling his or her own diabetes story and encouraging others with diabetes that they too “Can Do This.”

See the complete list of grantees and links to their proposal entries.