Lilly Diabetes and Disney Partner to Help Educate Kids with T1D
Lilly Diabetes, a pharmaceutical company that makes the KwikPen insulin pen that Timesulin supports, has collaborated with Disney to produce children’s books that help explain life with Type 1 diabetes, and feature real-life challenges and scenarios that kids in the T1D community face regularly, such as sports participation, school life, and going to birthday parties.
The books are available online at Type 1 Everyday Magic – a great site built by Disney and Lilly to create a community for families that need to manage T1D. The books (like this one featuring Disney characters like Mickey Mouse) have been available for a while, but were only distributed to pediatric endocrinology offices. Luckily for families, they’re now uploaded and available online and feature audio, along with a great online resource complete with diabetes-friendly family dinner recipes, inspirational stories from athletes and others in the T1D community who’ve done amazing things. They even organize in-person events to bring families together to learn more about managing diabetes in kids.
Managing diabetes as a family can sometimes be challenging, so it’s really refreshing to see large organizations reaching out and building communities to help facilitate dialogue and share information and tips about managing diabetes in kids and speaking to kids about healthy diabetes management in an easy-to-understand way.
Aside from Lilly and Disney, there have been a number of other companies that have begun working to help raise money and awareness of Type 1 diabetes in both children and adults. Ford Motor Company and Walgreens (a US-based pharmacy chain) have donated money and partnered with the JDRF to organize fundraisers. Tesco began a partnership with Diabetes UK three years ago to help raise awareness through multiple campaigns in their supermarkets. As time goes on, we hope that more and more companies will continue to join in and help us fund research and find a cure for Type 1 diabetes.
Have you noticed some companies advocating for diabetes? If so, share them in the comments!