I was in my office about to start my day when I got ‘the call’. My wife was taking my 4-year-old son, Mason, to the hospital; the pediatrician thinks he might have type 1 diabetes. The only thing I knew about type 1 was that a colleague of mine organized a Corporate Walk team for JDRF.

On my way out I stopped into his office and asked him, “Didn’t your son used to have diabetes?” His response was, “What do you mean used to?” I told him about the call and he sat me down and gave me a 10-minute crash course on what I needed to know as I headed into the hospital.

He explained to me that I was now part of a very small but very tight knit community and that there is support and help out there for my family and me when we need it. His guidance in that moment of crisis changed my life, my perspective and showed me that I had so much to learn and also so much to give.

‘The call’ came 10 years ago. I am happy to say Mason is doing well, but it has been a long and challenging path. My lack of education on Type 1 at the time of Mason’s diagnosis is a driving force in why we volunteer, why we serve on committees, why we serve on the Board, why we do outreach and of course, why we walk.

We walk for all the families who were fighting the fight before Mason was diagnosed and we walk for all of the families who will come after us. We walk for all of the advances we have seen in the past 10 years and the promise of more technologies to help people with type 1 lead better and more productive lives. We walk until their will no longer be a need to walk, when we finally have a cure.

-Kevin Kappel, Team Mason