Dancing to fight IBD

Thanks to the incredible generosity of the various communities I hail from, Girls with Guts and the Crohn's and Colitis Foundation will EACH be receiving over $650 apiece. That is more than I hoped or dreamed! Two successful Zumbathon events and an online campaign that filled me with love. Thank you all.

Ahhh! I reached my goal, with just two days to spare! Thank you so much for donating. Your support means more than I can say to me and to my many friends (I can say "many" thanks to Girls with Guts retreats!) with Crohn's and ulcerative colitis. I don't take your contribution lightly, and neither will the organizations that benefit.

Thank you!

With only two weeks to go, I'm at just about 75% of my online fundraising goal! I can't thank the donors enough for your support of me, of my many friends with IBD, of the once-lonely young women who find strength and hope in Girls with Guts retreats, and of the millions of others who would benefit from advances in research. But I'll try: THANK YOU!

Tickets are now available for anyone wishing to attend the Zumba event! https://www.zumba.com/en-US/event/view/ibd

I'm still working on getting the link to buy the Zumba party event tickets up and running, but in the meantime I wanted to provide a place for people to donate who can't attend the event.

The Crohn's & Colitis Foundation (www.crohnscolitisfoundation.org) works tirelessly on research and events to improve the lives of people with Crohn's disease and ulcerative colitis. Girls with Guts is a much smaller nonprofit that, among a few other things, puts on a yearly retreat for young women with these diseases. I've attended twice and found it to be exceptionally healing.

I consider myself very lucky to be healthy enough to dance, and as I've done once before, this year I wanted to leverage the best thing in my life--Zumba--to fight the worst.

Thank you for your time and consideration!