Carb DM will be using the fall 2015 Big Blue Test grant to serve two underserved populations in the Northern California area.  Asian Outreach Day is a program dedicated to the Asian community with type 1 diabetes. The program focuses on balancing type 1 diabetes and Asian cultures. The Asian Outreach Day features personal stories of people living with type 1 diabetes, a research update, understanding the benefits of exercise and type 1 diabetes and carb counting in Asian cuisine. The goal of the program is to help people from Asian cultures have a more open approach to their condition and be willing to self-advocate for themselves and their children. They also hope to help reduce the shame and mental burden of diabetes while increasing the connections among community members so they can build a network of support.

The second program that Carb DM will use the Big Blue Test grant award for will serve the Latino population in their community. Their goal with this program is to reach out to every newly diagnosed Latino family through connections at local hospitals and healthcare clinics.

These two programs are only a small fraction of Carb DM’s overall program offerings. Carb DM’s mission is to build a supportive community that improves the quality of life for people living with type 1 diabetes. They foster connections among people with diabetes, their loved ones, and medical professionals.

Now in their fifth year of operation, Carb DM offers over 80 programs a year to people of all ages and all levels of experience with type 1 diabetes. Carb DM currently serves over 1,000 families in the San Francisco Bay Area through a wide variety of programs that are geared toward people with type 1 diabetes and their caregivers.

Tamar Sofer-Geri, Carb DM Founder and Executive Director

Soon after her daughter’s diagnosis with type 1 diabetes in early 2009, Tamar Sofer-Geri realized that fellow parents of children with T1D are the true experts on managing the complexities of living with the condition. The more parents she met, talked with, and eventually mentored, the more apparent was the need for face-to-face interactions among parents, children, and families living with T1D in order to normalize their experience, share information, and get peer support. In 2011 Ms. Sofer-Geri founded Carb DM, Inc., a registered non-profit serving families and individuals living with T1D in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Prior to founding Carb DM, Ms. Sofer-Geri worked at Stanford University’s Office of Development and the Stanford Graduate School of Business for the better part of 15 years. Before moving to the US in 1996, Tamar graduated from Tel Aviv University with a degree in Political Science with a focus on Political Communication. She also wrote for The Jerusalem Post, at the time the only English-language daily newspaper in Israel.