Wear Purple Tomorrow!

Purple Day is an international day to promote epilepsy awareness held on March 26th. Purple Day was started by a 9 year old girl in Canada named Cassidy Megan. Cassidy wanted to let other people with epilepsy, especially children, know that they are not alone. Our friends at Bookscoops are hosting a Purple Day challenge on their blog to join in Cassidy’s efforts to increase epilepsy awareness world wide. Here is what Cari, from Bookscoops, has to say about Purple Day.

Why is Bookscoops going Purple for Epilepsy?

My [Cari's] oldest daughter was diagnosed almost 5 months ago with epilepsy. She has Generalized Seizure Disorder and experiences Tonic-Clonic Seizures, formerly known as Grand Mal. This has been a painful journey as I have watched my daughter struggle with this disorder. She is very bright and full of potential. Epilepsy is only part of her as a human being as she loves to read, spend time with friends, swim and play violin. One of my biggest frustrations is the lack of information and misconceptions surrounding this disorder and particularly the lack of funding it receives. I feel that one of the best ways to help her deal with this is to raise awareness. Her life with epilepsy can be made easier and safer as more people know about this common disorder and learn how to respond with appropriate first aid.

Cari's daughter in purple.

In addition, we wanted to raise awareness about epilepsy because it is the second most common reason people see a neurologist behind migraine. Epilepsy affects 50 million people world wide and about 3 million people living in the United States have epilepsy. More people have this condition than multiple sclerosis, cerebral palsy, muscular dystrophy and Parkinson’s disease combined. Unfortunately, a lot of myths and false ideas are still being perpetuated about epilepsy (such as it is a mental condition or that epilepsy is contagious). Some of these misconceptions have caused many people to become isolated and live in fear and shame that someone will find out about their condition and many people have faced discrimination based on their medical diagnosis.

Who Can Participate and How to Participate?

There are number of ways to participate in our first annual Purple Day Challenge and because we love to promote literacy we are combining both reading and Purple Day starting on March 21st and ending on March 31st. While our blog focuses on children and adolescent literature we are inviting anyone to go purple!!!! So that means any person, book blogger or blogger who wants to promote Purple Day may participate. To make this easy on you (and us) choose any or all of the following.

1. Post the Purple Day Button on your blog starting on Sunday March 21st through Saturday March 27th and write a post promoting Purple Day. Please note we have received permission to use the Purple Day logo as part of this challenge. If you choose this option you must read and agree to the copyright notice on the Purple Day website by using the logo you are stating that you have read and agree to their terms of use. Two sizes of buttons are at the bottom of this post.
2. Read a book about epilepsy and post a review. For a list of books for children go to Epilepsy.Com.
3. Read a book by or about a famous person with epilepsy and post a review. Cari’s daughter’s favorite so far is The Day-Glo Brothers: The True Story Behind Bob and Joe Switzer’s Bright Ideas and Brand-New Colors, which also is a Cybils winner for 2009. Some names you might know are Harriet Tubman, Alfred Nobel and Charles Dickens and more recently actor Danny Glover, football player Alan Faneca and track star, Florence Griffin Joyner known as Flo Jo. For a more complete list visit The Epilepsy Foundation or if you’re a fan of Wikipedia see the List of Famous people with Epilepsy, which to be honest seems to be the best documented list we’ve found so far.
4. Read a book that promotes self-confidence and acceptance in children and post a review. Suggested books so far with a very appropriate title, Purplicious by Victoria Kann and Elizabeth Kann and Little Skink’s Tail by Janet Halfmann, illustrated by Laurie Allen Klein.
5. If you or a family has dealt with epilepsy write a post sharing your experience.
6. Wear purple on March 26th and tell people why you are wearing purple.
7. Click on the link to watch the 60 Minute Special on Epilepsy and write about what the things that you learned you in a blog post, or if you don’t have a blog put it in the comments for this post.
8. Have an idea not listed above submit it and we’ll give you another entry. Cari’s niece is making 600+ purple ribbons for her school. So if you think of something put a comment in the comments below.

For every entry we receive, Cari will donate 25¢ per entry for a total of fifty dollars to a non-profit organization that works towards epilepsy awareness and/or research and Holly will match Cari’s donation. Multiple entries are possible. One entry equals doing one of the seven items listed above.

Our Goals for this Challenge

Our goal is three-fold 1) to promote Purple Day and raise epilepsy awareness, 2) to dispel myths surrounding epilepsy and 3) to compile a more comprehensive list of books that portray epilepsy and/or people with epilepsy accurately, especially for children. Finally we do hope to raise some money for epilepsy awareness.

How to Enter and When Does it End?

Sign-up in the comments below telling us who you are and what you are planning on doing to participate. Make sure you leave a link to your blog. If you post about this challenge please leave us a link in the comments to your post and we will put together a list of everyone who participated with links to their blog posts as the week progresses. The Purple Day mini-challenge begins on March 21st and ends March 31st, midnight MST.

Rewards for this Challenge:

We would love to offer prizes, but at this point we don’t have anything to offer except the good feeling that you are helping other people become aware of a disorder that affects millions of people world wide. We might consider it for future years. However, remember Cari is willing to donate .25¢ up to a total of fifty dollars and Holly will match her donation to a non-profit organization that works towards epilepsy awareness and/or research for each person who commits to participate by doing any of the 8 options above. See above for details of how to enter and participate.

Non-profit Groups that promote Epilepsy Awareness, Education and Fund Research

Purple Day – Founded by nine-year old Cassidy Megan to promote global epilepsy awareness.

CURE Citizens United for Research in Epilepsy – raises money for epilepsy research.

Epilepsy Foundation an organization dedicated to advocacy, education and research.

Epilepsy Association of Utah – The group in Cari’s state dedicated to educating the public and supporting persons and their families with epilepsy.

Anita Kaufman Foundation – Dedicated to educating the public to not fear epilepsy.