Corporate Sponsorship Needed for the RedKite Gala

Dear Friends:

Wishing you a blissful summer!!

REDKITE GALA
The JPF is hosting the first annual Red Kite Gala fundraising dinner on Saturday, November 22, 2008 at the Irish Cultural Center in San Francisco. Proceeds will fund the Northern California Umbilical Cord Blood Bank. We have enlisted support from the following community and medical leaders.

Red Kite Gala Honorary Chairs:
Congressman Dan Lungren
Congresswoman Jackie Speier
Senator Leland Y. Yee, Ph.D.
Assemblywoman Fiona Ma
San Francisco Supervisor Michela Alioto-Pier
San Francisco Supervisor Carmen Chu
San Francisco Supervisor Sean Elsbernd
Morton Cowan, M.D., UCSF, Children’s Hospital
Mitchell Katz, M.D., Director, San Francisco Public Health Department
Michael Amylon, M.D., Stanford University
Joanne Kurtzberg, M.D., Duke Medical Center
Jordan Wilbur, M.D., Cancer Hope
Rev. Msgr. Michael Harriman, Pastor, St. Cecilia Parish

We are asking for support from corporations, foundations and organizations to help raise $2.5 M for this NCUBB project. Please help us by asking your employers for sponsorship or matching grants for this event. Please help us turn the biological medical waste-placenta and umbilical cord in the San Francisco Bay Area into a miracle of life-saving therapeutic treatment for many patients with serious diseases in Northern California and worldwide. Umbilical cord blood stem cell transplants have been increasingly recognized as an effective treatment option for cancer, immune deficiencies and genetic disorders, etc, in the 21st century.

HADLEY HOPE FUND NEEDED TO SAVE PEYTON AND KAYLA
The Hadley family drove down from the state of Oregon and met with me in San Francisco on Saturday, August 9. Two of their three children are affected with Niemann-Pick Type C disease, a neurodegenerative illness in nature. It is similar to Alzheimer's disease in children. For additional information, please visit their website at www.hadleyhope.com.

The symptoms for Peyton, their eldest child at the age of 11, began two and a half years ago, and it took almost two years to receive a diagnosis. Peyton, once an early reader and talker, began cognitive decline, weight loss, and now speaks very slowly. Kayla, a lovely girl, is also sadly diagnosed with this disease. I could sympathize with their parents, Bryan and Laura, as it is agonizing and devastating to watch the children degenerating slowly to their end-point. According to recent research, they have found that umbilical cord blood stem cell transplantation may possibly be one therapy toward a cure. A cord blood experiment will be conducted in NP-C mice in the United States in the next couple of months that will test the viability of treatment. They plan to provide $100,000 to fund research and trials in the States.

Hopefully, once the NCUBB project is up and running, JPF will be able to focus on funding research and sponsoring clinical trials related to the use of the umbilical cord blood stem cells.

Blessings,

Joseph Pang