What can you do?

So you’re reading the PJ Day prep, and wondering if you can be up in Jasper to join the festivities. You don’t have to be. In fact, the idea is that people all around the world start their own PJ Day and that is what will give us the voice and power to change status quo. Then post pictures and events on Twitter or Facebook with the hash tag #weonePJday, let’s make this a trending hash tag on February 28, 2014. Remember….

#weonePJday

Start your own PJ Day event. My biggest piece of advice here is take on something you already do, something you are so familiar with, you could do it with your eyes closed. If you teach yoga, do a PJ Yoga day, if you are a runner, organize a PJ Day run, if you are in drama, do a performance with PJ’s, do something that comes naturally and gather some friends, and just add PJ’s. If you’re a teacher, organize a PJ Day at your school. Start the discussion going. Send us your pics on Twitter or Facebook with the above hash tag.

Here’s another idea if you’re the fundraising type of person and want to take the PJ Day event one step further.

If you’re interested in this I imagine you already have a relationship with some foundation or charity group that is autoimmune disease related. If you’d like to make your event into a fund raiser, I’m certain there are many people who would be thrilled. Here’s a way to make this a win-win situation where absolutely everyone involved benefits. Do a PJ themed fundraiser, and give 92% of your earnings to your favorite charity, however we ask that when you give it to them you tell them that it’s money raised from a Find The Common Thread PJ Day Event. That way they’ll know that we are not interested in taking money away from them, but want to work together with all of them to get closer to finding the cure for all autoimmune disease. They will have a cash infusion that they weren’t counting on, they get to see that Find The Common Thread is only a win-win Foundation, and we can start establishing relationships that can lead us towards only positive change. The other 8% from your fundraising efforts can come to us (Find The Common Thread) in Canada or AARDA (American Autoimmune Related Disease Association – http://www.aarda.org) in the United States. That 8% will go towards research that is all encompassing and is looking for the commonalities and potential answers to ALL Autoimmune Disease rather than each individual one, an effort that has only yielded treatment to symptoms and disease progression thus far, no cures. If we really want to see a cure in our lifetimes we need to start approaching the subject from a different perspective.

“Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” – Albert Einstein

We need to look at autoimmune disease as the disease group that it is, not at each individual disease as a standalone. We need to look at the forest, not each individual tree.

I will create some posters and make them available here so that anyone can pick one up and print it for your event. Let’s change the game plan and maybe we will see some different results.

I will also be announcing a contest in the next week or so for all you creative types. Stay tuned.