Merrill Henderson Consumer Scholarship Fund

2006 Annual Meeting Summary

In 2006, NERGG awarded one A. Merrill Henderson Consumer Scholarship Award.   The AMH Award provides modest financial support to families in New England who are affected by genetic conditions and wish to attend conferences or meetings around the country.

Today we would like to share with you feedback form this year’s award recipient.  Hopefully, stories such as theirs, will impress upon us the need for even modest donations to support this worthy cause.

This year our award recipient’s family attended the 5th Biennial 22q13 Deletion Syndrome Conference in Greenville, South Carolina.   Their post conference summary tells us: “We enjoyed sessions which were medical in nature, having the opportunity to glimpse into the new understanding on the nature and role of the deleted gene.   Another focus of the conference was family support networking. We heard from medical professionals as well as parents on the effective strategies and successes realized on how to better advocate for our children.

Not to be forgotten, our 10-year-old son was included in a sibling session. Though he is a bit tight lipped about the session, he was all smiles afterwards and he came away from the conference with a support group of his own.

Finally,“We were touched by every child, every family, every caregiver, every medical professional we met- each of them angels, like our own Olivia. This conference was invaluable to us; thank you”.