March of Dimes

November is National Premature Awareness Month

For obvious reasons I am very passionate about this. There are babies everyday fighting for their lives. 

The Hard Facts:

• The United States ranks 131st out of 184 countries with a 11.7% rate of preterm births. 
• More than 500,000 babies are still being born to soon each year in the US. 
• 1 in 8 babies are born too soon.
• Every 30 seconds a baby dies from being born prematurely.
• Michigan itself received a "C" on the 2012 Premature birth report card. Here is Michigan's Report Card.

You can help when you donate to March of Dimes. The March of Dimes fights for babies every day, they are active in hospital NICUs, offer essential education for mothers-to-be, and fund lifesaving medical research.

We want to give a big thank you so everyone who supported us last year as we walked a 5k as Team Gatlyn. We were the Second Place Family Team in the Grand Rapids Division! I was so excited to receive a plaque in the mail the other day saying so. Along with the date of the 2013 March for Babies. Which will be April 27th. We are excited and ready to start earlier this year on getting funds around and to try to beat what we raised last year, $3,185. We will keep you updated on what we are going to be doing for that. 

Mark your calendars and lets make Team Gatlyn the #1 family team. Thank you!!