Dining in the Dark is about to land in Minneapolis for the first time, and Maple Grove resident Julie Anderson is leading the charge. The fundraising event, organized by Minnesota’s Northern Lights Chapter of Foundation Fighting Blindness, will feature the usual suspects: speakers, awards presentations, and a nice meal. But there’s one catch: Participants will have to enjoy their meal blindfolded.
“[The organizers] will turn the lights down and everyone will put on their blindfold. The entrée is then placed in front of them and nothing is explained—no ‘the meat is at 6 o’ clock’ or anything. They have to discover the layout of the plate themselves,” explains Anderson, the chapter president. “There’s a lot of grabbing and guessing that goes on. A lot of people end up eating with their hands because it’s easier.”
The event serves a two-fold purpose: to give people a brief glimpse of the everyday struggles of people who are blind; and to raise money for human clinical trials to test treatments of retinal diseases of the eye such as retinitis pigmentosa (RP), macular degeneration, and other congenital eye diseases.
Both are very important to Anderson, who suffers from RP. The disease affects people’s peripheral vision and then eventually moves to their central vision resulting in complete blindness.
Diagnosed at age 40, Anderson, now 52, started noticing her symptoms at age 30 with night blindness and peripheral vision loss. Anderson is still at a point where she is able to drive and see faces, but she’s missing pockets of vision.
“The typical course of RP is 30 years. People who are diagnosed with the disease at age 15 would be blind by the time they turn 40,” Anderson says. “Mine seems to be on a slower course, and for that I’m really grateful.”
The Minnesota chapter has been around for 20 years. Its original purpose was to serve as a support group since most of the participants either have these diseases or are parents of children with these diseases. In the past three to five years, the chapter has ramped up its fundraising efforts because of recent breakthroughs in treatments.
Donna Hawley, an owner of Maple Grove’s Pearle Vision franchise, is on the foundation’s fundraising committee. They’re hoping to raise $100,000 from this inaugural event.
“We’re at the point in eye care where people are coming more and more often to our store with congenital diseases,” Hawley says. “The foundation has done great things in their research, and we’ve come to a point now where we need to go to trials for the treatment they developed. A large portion of the field has made so much progress with their research that a lot of people could possibly prevent their symptoms from advancing or even have their sight restored.”
According to Anderson, the lowest price for a clinical human trial is about $40 million and it would most likely cost much more than that in the end.
Because of the high cost of a human clinical trial, individual tickets to the event run on the high end at $250 each and tables of eight will cost $2,500. Though it’s pricey, the event serves as an investment in the futures of the nearly 8,700,000 people that deal with retinal degenerative diseases daily in the U.S.
To find more information on the event or retinal disease, check out Foundation Fighting Blindness’ website.
&
If You Go
Date: May 23, 2012
When: 6-9pm
Where: The Marquette Hotel; 710 Marquette Ave. Minneapolis
Tickets: $250/ticket or $2,500/table of eight
Tickets can be purchased online
For more information call 847.680.0100
