Nexstar Broadcasting partners with Syracuse University’s Newhouse School of Public Communications. Each summer graduate students from the Broadcast and Digital Journalism program travel to Washington, D.C. and provide reports to local markets from our nation’s capital. Sunny Tsai is a California native reporting for KSEE24/CBS47 this semester.
The Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation, or JDRF, is holding its biannual Children’s Congress at the Nation’s Capitol.
“I was diagnosed when I was 11, three days after Christmas. Best present ever,” says Anthony Greene, a representative from California, talking about his journey with Type 1 diabetes.
He is from Bakersfield, and is one of more than 160 delegates representing their states at the JDRF Children’s Congress this year.
“They want a cure,” says Robert Greene. “And they’re doing everything they can to educate everyone out there to hopefully find that cure.”
During the congress, each delegate meets with representatives from his/her state to ask for funding for JDRF and create more awareness.
“We spend more time talking about it to other people,” says Greene. “Oh yeah, I’m a Type 2. I understand.” No…no you don’t it’s completely different.”
Type 1 diabetics do not produce insulin. He injects himself with insulin 3 times a day, and checks his blood sugar 4-5 times a day.
“There’s a joke where our lives are math. Everything that I eat, I have to calculate,” Greene says.
There are over one million Americans diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes. These delegates came from all across the nation to lobby Congress for more research funds and to lower the cost of insulin.
Diabetes has not held Greene back. “I’ve actually done more since I’ve been diagnosed than beforehand.”
To educate and make a safe space for others who face challenges like diabetes and autism, Anthony created the Quiet Zone as part of his Eagle Scout Project.
It’s a room for “diabetics to test and monitor their blood sugar and take insulin in a cool environment,” he explained.
His project and story raises awareness for JDRF’s goal of turning Type 1 to Type none.
