Auction to help fight lupus

Scrap For A Cure aims to raise $30,000

MOSES LAKE - Lupus brought friends Karen Earl and Nikki Dart together.

Dart was diagnosed eight years ago with the chronic inflammatory autoimmune disease, which can affect various parts of the body, especially the skin, joints, blood, and kidneys, and learned of Earl's more recent diagnosis through Earl's husband.

"It was an instant bond, because when you have such a devastating disease, you can really get that support," Dart said. "When you're first diagnosed, you don't know what's normal, what's going on, what's this, should I go to the doctor, should I not, should I wait? And for us together, it was like, 'You're going to be OK.'"

Earl and Dart's second annual Scrap For A Cure takes place Saturday from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. in the Moses Lake High School Commons Room, located at 803 E. Sharon Ave. A silent auction lasts from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m.

"My intent of putting together a Scrap For a Cure is because I love scrapbooking, but I also really firmly believe we leave fingerprints wherever we go in this life, and if we don't journal our journey, those fingerprints are going to disappear," Earl said.

The event includes different scrapbook activities and challenges and contests. TY Corporation and Making Memories donated supplies to be given away as door prizes, Earl added.

The event's silent auction includes celebrity donations for people to bid upon, including autographed photos, CDs, posters, DVDs, a "Seventh Heaven" script signed by the cast and a baseball autographed by Mariners pitcher Jeff Weaver.

"What I did was I contacted the celebrities, I mailed over 500 different celebrities of some kind, and asked them to send us something for the silent auction part of our fund-raiser," Earl said. "I did this, ask the celebrities, because we don't have anything that was offered in Moses Lake that was like this before, and we have so many people asking for donations in our own community, I decided to branch out into somewhere else for these donations, to make it a little bit different than what other people have seen before, but also so the community gets a little bit of a break from the asking for different donations."

The goal is to raise $30,000. Earl said she knows it's a large goal, but she knows eventually it will be raised.

"Every single dollar counts, every person counts," she said. "My mission in this is to raise awareness of what lupus is."

There are many misconceptions surrounding the disease, Earl and Dart said.

For example, people with lupus have often incorrectly been diagnosed as hypochondriacs, felt the side effects of the treatments or worried about how the unpredictability of the disease can impact them and their families and friends who might not understand.

"I think we have to contact our congressman and we have to get our federal government involved," Earl said. "We have to get them to understand this is a disease that deserves just as much attention as any other devastating, debilitating or any other potentially fatal disease. And we're not getting that awareness."

Dart said 1.5 million people in America have been diagnosed with lupus.

"Karen and I can both tell you how many times people have asked us, 'What is lupus?'" she said. "On the average it takes three to five years to get a diagnosis correct. It takes a little bit too long and the prejudice that comes with it, people don't know enough."

Earl said a slideshow presentation called "The Faces of Lupus" begins at 11 a.m. Put on by Dottie Productions, it offers information about lupus and a remembrance of those people who have died from lupus.

Earl is also hoping to put together a support group in Moses Lake for lupus patients and their families.

Scrapbookers make a $25 donation to the Lupus Foundation of America, while non-scrapbookers are asked to make a minimum $1 donation at the door.

Donations may be made online at www.firstgiving.com/KarenEarl.

For more information, call Earl at 509-855-2262 or Dart at 509-770-6868.