Everything Under The Sun: When Friendship Means A Lot

Wednesday, November 5, 2014

When Friendship Means A Lot

Front cover of "Chocolate Bar" book.

At the age of 8, Dylan Siegel is a popular author. And imagine this, he wrote the book when he was 6 years old! Not a penny from sales has gone to Dylan.

There was a higher purpose for writing the book, "Chocolate Bar", which actually is code for awesome. Dylan's friend Jonah Pournazarian was born with Glycogen Storage Disease Type 1b, which is so rare that it affects only one in one million people. Because of this illness, Jonah must be fed a special formula through a stomach tube several times per day in order to remain healthy. Dylan wanted to do something to help Jonah.

The University of Florida Health System has a SPECIALIZED PROGRAM for individuals who suffer from the various types of glycogen storage diseases. At the time Dylan and his family approached them about Dylan's idea to write a book to raise money to continue their research, which, coincidentally, was running out of funding.

Now, Dylan was dreaming quite large; he had a goal to raise $1 million. Once he wrote the book for children, a CHOCOLATE BAR BOOK WEBSITE was set up, where the book could be purchased, along with tattoos, bracelets, t-shirts, and other items, all going to the GSD program at University of Florida Health System.

So, how far did Dylan get to realizing his goal? Wait for this, ta-ta-ta-daah - he has now raised more than $900,000. It just goes to show that even when you dream big, you can get there step by step.