Photo Contest

This was the first year the Epilepsy Foundation held a Get Seizure Smart Photo Contest for National Epilepsy Awareness Month and it was a great success! We received lots of pictures and want to thank everyone who submitted a picture for their participation. We love your enthusiasm and imaginations. To us, you are ALL winners!

CONGRATULATIONS to the winners of our Get Seizure Smart Photo Contest and those who received honorable mentions.You all have won an extraordinary prize-- bragging rights! That's right, now you can brag that you placed in the Epilepsy Foundation's Photo Contest!

Here are the winners of the 2011 Get Seizure Smart Photo Contest:

Most Impactful

Erin and her family ran their first ever "Crawl for a Cure" Epilepsy Charity Pub Crawl in South Boston, MA this year. They sold over 80 tickets online to the event. Each ticket included a long sleeve T-Shirt, awareness bracelet and goodie bag. In each goodie bag was a Get Seizure Smart bookmark as well as a Save-the-Date for the National Walk for Epilepsy in Washington DC this March.
They went to 8 local bars who all gave them a gift certificate to raffle off and had food donated with more raffle prizes at the last bar. Everyone was encouraged to wear purple to accessorize their t-shirts and they had purple pom-poms, glasses, beads and wigs to give out.
All of the money raised went toward their fundraising goal their National Walk for Epilepsy team "Shannon's Soldiers." Erin's sister Shannon was hospitalized while the Pub Crawl took place because of her seizures. Two days before the event, Shannon underwent an invasive brain surgery to remove a part of her brain the doctor's were confident was causing her seizures. She is now recovering and is so far seizure free! They raised over $2,500 dollars for their Walk team.

Honorable Mention:

Jessica is an extraordinary teen. She is Miss Ohio Jr. Teen America and was diagnosed with epilepsy in 2008. This photo was taken when Fox 45 asked Jessica to come on the morning show to talk about what its like to have epilepsy. Also, Jessica held a fundraiser to help send a child to epilepsy summer camp. She designed a T-shirt, which she sold, and held a raffle. She also passed out Get Seizure Smart quizzes. In addition, Jessica received a proclamation and a week named in her honor from the mayor and city where she lives.

Funniest or Silliest

This picture was submitted by Renae. It is from when two girls, Savannah and Elizabeth, were in Children's in St. Paul for 6 days. They realized they had both attended summer camp together and became friends. They had a lot of fun together while their doctors tried to get the epilepsy medications right. They even played a game of mini hockey in their room. Whenever their families would come in, the girls would both be laying in the same bed giggling about something. When Renae's son came up to visit he decided to blow up a glove, draw a face and put the helmet on its head. He placed it in Savannah's bed with the remote...a little comic relief for the long days.
Here are Savannah and Elizabeth:




Honorable mention:

This is Braeden all dressed up in his costume for the Epilepsy Walk in Colorado.

His mom, Julie submitted this photo.







 

Best Animal

This is Britney and her seizure dog, Milo. Milo has brought Britney a sense of security and not to mention lots of love. He is currently being trained to ring a door bell in her room when Britney is seizing in the middle of the night, this will allow her parents to administer life-saving medications, if needed.

Britney spoke at a Community Breakfast at the Brentwood School of Business and Leadership on November 17th. She handed out the Get Seizure Smart quiz and her personal story to business leaders, parents, students and community members. She spoke about how epilepsy has impacted her life as well as her family's life. She also gave the quiz to all 4th-6th grade students and spoke in one of the 6th grade classrooms.

Most Artistic or Creative

This is tattoo that Corine got for her sister, Jessie, who has epilepsy. It has Jessie's initials and a purple ribbon for epilepsy awareness.