At the beginning of the Promise Campaign, we told you that we need YOU for 432… and you definitely stepped up to the challenge! I want to thank you again for helping us reach our goal of meeting with 432 Members of Congress, which we reached yesterday afternoon with two weeks left in the Campaign.

However, we can’t let up yet! Even though we reached our goal, there are still Members we need to meet with to talk about importance the Special Diabetes Program. This program funds research at NIH that is bringing us closer to a cure and new treatments for type 1 diabetes. The SDP even funded research into the artificial pancreas technologies that are addressed by the draft guidance issued by the FDA last fall. The remaining two weeks of the Promise Campaign present the perfect opportunity to tell your Members of Congress how much the renewal of this vital program means to you!

Thus, we have set a new goal for the Promise Campaign: 450 meetings scheduled or held by May 1, 2012. This means we need 18 more beyond our initial goal. While this may seem daunting, scheduling this many meetings in the final weeks is absolutely doable! To reach 450, we need to schedule:

• 9 meetings per week
• Just over 1 meeting per day

During the 2010 Campaign, coordinators scheduled 88 meetings in the month of April, and we would only need to schedule less than half of that this time around to reach 450. 18 meetings were scheduled so far this month to bring us to 432, and campaign coordinators have already scheduled 3 more meetings since yesterday afternoon. That brings our grand total 435, and means we have 15 to go to reach 450!

Can you help us get 15 more meetings to reach our new Promise goal? Send me an email at advocacy@jdrf.org to let me know you would like to help, and we will get you set up with everything you need to spread the word about the Special Diabetes Program!