Congratulations to Shelly Richards, a middle school nurse in Sugar Land, Texas, who won a recent contest to raise awareness about primary immunodeficiency.
Richards won the Jeffrey Modell Foundation’s (JMF) first prize for her inventive bulletin board display that hid objects representing the 10 warning signs of primary immunodeficiency in a 3-D look-and-find scene. The JMF awarded Richards an educational grant for her school, Dulles Middle School.
Get the latest stories from Vita by signing up for our newsletter.
The Jeffrey Modell Foundation is known for taking creative approaches to raising awareness about primary immunodeficiency (PI). The global foundation has created public service advertising campaigns, translated the “10 Warning Signs of Primary Immunodeficiency” into 50+ languages and, later this year, its founders will share their story in the documentary film, “Do Something: The Jeffrey Modell Story.” The Modells’ son Jeffrey died of the disease at age 15.
The global foundation targeted the bulletin board campaign to school nurses because they assess so many students and can help identify children who get sick a lot and could have a primary immunodeficiency. Someone who has one of the many rare diseases known collectively as PI has an immune system that does not work as it should, putting the person at risk of life-threatening infections. It can take years for a patient to get an accurate diagnosis and begin meaningful treatment.
