Christmas Donations for Celiac Disease Research

to add to the over $40,000 raised for Celiac Disease or you can do via

• Internet: "Every blog and web site on the Internet was talking about it" is how one person put it - some of the sites that have linked to it include USAToday, NYTimes, FoxNews, Slashdot (six times), DIGG (five times), Fark (three times), MajorGeeks. Some prominent non-US sites include The Inquirer (England), Heise (Germany) Index.hu (Hungary), and MBnet.fi (Finland). It was one of the top-two clicked-thru stories on CNN.Com, Foxnews.Com, and WSJ.Com on Dec 28th, 2004.
• Print: Numerous stories all over the place. Local coverage since 2002, but it exploded in 2004 when it went out on the AP (inter)national wire (twice!) and also in TIME Magazine. In 2005, it hit front page of Denver Post/Rocky Mountain News, Longmont, and Boulder papers, plus Washington Post. Local papers again covered it in 2006 & 2007 ... and in 2008, it won the nationwide KFC Christmas Contest.
• Radio: There was dozens of live interviews in various markets (not one, but two in Perth Australia - declined BBC request due to time zone) in 2004 and a snippet on NPR Morning Edition. Half-dozen live interviews in 2005 plus who knows how many others mentioned the Christmas Lights webcam. Ditto in 2006, 2007, & 2008.
• TV: Detailed coverage by several major Denver stations - again, who knows how far that was all re-broadcast. And heck, ABC even took me up in their helicopter for a live report on the 6:00 News. View some of the TV coverage here.

So are you interested is having your company name listed on the Christmas Lights web pages ... and helping out a good charitable cause? I'm not a lawyer/PR/marketing/whatever person, but lets make this real easy. First, read about the University of Maryland Center for Celiac Research and then donate online at their web site and in the comments, say "I like Alek's Christmas Lights" ... and forward me the confirmation Email. I'll add your name/company (maximum 3 words and must be family friendly) to the web pages listed above for a year. There is no promises, guarantees, whatever on how many web hits and/or media coverage will happen.

Donation levels are: $100 (individual no link), $1,000 (company with link), $10,000 (company with link and similar-size logo). Contact me with any questions/comments, but THAT is the "deal" - i.e. it's real simple and don't bother me (or the fine folks at the Celiac Research Center) with your lawyers, 50-page contracts, or any of that crap. I reserve the right to decline any ad and/or change these terms and conditions ... but highly doubtful that will happen.

Pam King - CFCR Director of Operations Alek - aka Mr. Christmas Lights! ;-) Dr. Alessio Fasano - CFCR Medical Director

My kids (that's Dirk, Kyle, and their Big Green Buddy in the picture) have Celiac Disease which is an autoimmune disorder triggered by the protein gluten found in wheat, rye, barley and possibly oats. Similar to diabetes, you don't grow out of this ... and there is no cure short of going on a strict gluten-free diet. So while low-carb diets are the rage these days, it's a bit of a challenge when the kids go to events such as birthday parties (cake is a no-no unless made with rice flour) or after school/sports gatherings at a pizza joint. There's a LOT more I could write (spending 4 days at Children's hospital for "failure to thrive" is no fun), but the kids are doing great now, mostly thanx to the great efforts by my wonderful wife Wendy. Hopefully when my kids grow up, they will be able to go out with (old) Dad not only for (corn chip) Nacho's and Margarita's (Tequila is OK), but also Burgers (with a real bun) and Beer! ;-) $39,732.50 has been raised (as of October 27th, 2009) to fund research to find a cure for Celiac Disease. So it's been suggested numerous times that I should require people to donate to charity so they can control the lights. I'm don't agree with that as I want the website to remain totally free and totally fun ... with any donations to Celiac charity to be completely optional. However, I'm debating doing something like if you donate a $100 to charity, you (and only you) get dedicated control of the entire Christmas Display for 10 minutes. The webcams would still be live for everyone in the world to watch ... but only you could control the lights & inflatables. And the rest of the time, anyone in the world can continue to control the lights for free. I don't know if that is a good idea ... or maybe just dumb. So drop me a note and let me know what you think ... and for sure if you'd be willing to do it.