JDRF day at SBC Park

Last Thursday was a special day for Team Shelby and our family. It was Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation day at SBC Park. The Giants lost to the San Diego Padres that day. But Liz and the kids had great seats 27 rows up from first base thanks to our good friend Leslie and her family. Mark and I sat up in the upper deck in seats he’d purchased earlier in the year; we like to go to at least one game a year together, just the guys, and this one turned out to be on JDRF day. The seats we had were the same ones our family sat in for our first family game at the Giants in 2003.

JDRF day with the Giants is really just an awareness-raising event. There is a booth down on the community row next to the KNBR radio booth. There was a pre-game ceremony out at home plate where some kids with diabetes thanked the Giants and pitcher Brett Tomko for their efforts in raising awareness of the disease. It also was a chance for us to wear our Team Shelby shirts and answer people’s questions about what Team Shelby is, spreading the word one person at a time.

It was a great day all around, except for the final score. But like a long baseball season where your team is kinda in the playoff hunt and kinda not, the work of educating people about diabetes, what it means and what we can do to fight it is a day-by-day process.

Each person we tell about Team Shelby is one more person who didn’t know before. Each person we hand a JDRF pamphlet to is one more person who may just take a minute to read it and learn something really important.

There are JDRF chapters and events all over the country. If there’s one near you, stop by and let the folks there know you support the work they are doing for a little girl you know in Northern California.