Kady Helme

JDRF National Coordinator, Strategic Communications

Kady Helme was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes when she was five years old.  Her family initially became involved with JDRF by forming a family Walk team, Kady’s Krusaders, in 1997.  From 1999-2011, she was a JDRF National Youth Ambassador and spoke to companies such as AON, Discover, and Welsh Oil to encourage them to build corporate Walk teams.  Kady has experience speaking at a variety of JDRF events such as Walk kick offs, Galas, Person of the Year dinners, major donor events, among others. She has promoted JDRF through appearances and interviews with local and national TV, radio, and newspaper outlets, such as the Today Show and Good Morning America.

Kady’s first trip to “storm the hill” in Washington D.C. was in 2000 when she lobbied her Illinois congressmen. In 2005, Kady returned as a member of Children’s Congress where she met with then Illinois Senator Barak Obama to discuss funding of type 1 diabetes research.

Kady has also had extensive T1D research trial experience.  In 2006, she participated in her first closed-loop trial at Yale University Hospital, which she later repeated in 2010.  She has also participated in trials testing Victoza and PET beta-cell imaging. In fall 2014, Kady participated in a JDRF funded closed-loop “out-of-hospital” artificial pancreas trial.

Working as part of the JDRF National Strategic Communications Department, Kady manages TypeOneNation summit events and the Young Leadership Committee groups. Kady is comfortable speaking for JDRF events on topics such as advocacy, fundraising, diabetes management (she uses a CGM and insulin pump) and the clinical trial experience.