"Everyone should have friends like mine.  Not everyone has that support."

Lisa Shelley, newly diagnosed with ALS (Lou Gehrig's Disease) in February 2006, had a dream to create a program established to not only create more public awareness to ALS, but to let newly-diagnosed patients know that someone understands what they are going through.  ALS is a progressive neurodegenerative disease that causes the brain to lose the ability to control muscle movement, leading to patient paralysis.  Speech, swallowing, and breathing can also be affected.  Currently there is no cure, but there is hope.

"I'm lucky," says Shelley.  "Not everyone has friends like I have, and I see that at the clinic.  There are so many people there who are not only struggling with the disease, but struggling with everything else that comes with it-how to pay the bills and how to meet their day-to-day needs."

The gifts bags received through the FLM program are an effort to help restore some level of normalcy in the lives of those living with ALS.  The bags are not meant to be a reminder of the disease, but a reminder that they are human first, to say "you are special and I know what you are going through."   Funded primarily through private donations, the bags contain gift cards from Target, Barnes and Nobles, and Harris-Teeter.  They also contain a journal, lotion, an information card and an inspirational bookmark of a poem that means a great deal to Lisa and her family.  Currently a dozen bags are distributed monthly to the patients at the MDA/ALS Center at Carolina Medical Center in Charlotte, NC.  It is hoped that the program will grow to be a staple in every one of the other 29 Muscular Dystrophy Clinics associated with ALS across the U.S.

YOUR HELP IS NEEDED!
Your Tax-Deductible Donations can be sent to:  Friends Like Mine, 377 Northbridge Ct, High Point, NC 27265. Make checks payable to:"Yogi's Friends"
and reference to: Friends Like Mine at the bottom of your check.

MAKE A DONATION TO FRIENDS LIKE MINE IN HONOR OF OR IN MEMORY OF A LOVED ONE.  THE FAMILY WILL RECEIVE A DONATION CARD IN YOUR NAME AND YOU WILL RECEIVE A THANK YOU CARD FOR YOUR DONATION.

For every $10.00 donation or more, you will receive Lisa's inspirational bookmark,
"Mountain Moving."

Friends Like Mine is a non-profit organization inspired to offer love and support to newly-diagnosed ALS patients.