CityView Magazine

CityViewNC.com | 65 City Angel I n a perfect world, every newborn baby would arrive full-term, perfectly healthy, and protected from the illnesses and ignorance that contribute to North Carolina's high infant mortality rate. Regrettably, we do not inhabit a perfect world – but we do have passionate advocates for infants and children who work hard to achieve progress in dealing with birth defects, premature births and infant mortality. "What I would like people to know about the March of Dimes," says Gayle Nelson, the Executive Director of the Cape Fear Division of NC March of Dimes, "is that we are advocates for children from the very first day of their lives. When we turn to the community for financial support, it is for those babies that we are speaking." Thanks to the efforts of the staff and the volunteers, Nelson says, the community comes through. Most By Sara VanderClute recently, a fundraiser held in October raised $65,000 for the March of Dimes. A well-attended Signature Chef's Auction at the Metropolitan Room brought generous donors together with an opportunity to sample some of Fayetteville's best food, prepared by some of the city's best chefs. Nelson credits generous sponsors and generous donors for the success of the fundraiser; she fully expects to do even better next year. Nelson says the money raised goes directly to the National March of Dimes, but it comes back to North Carolina through the funding of programs at Duke University that are aimed at the March of Dimes mission: protecting babies from premature birth, birth defects and infant mortality. The March of Dimes has an interesting history. Created by President Franklin Roosevelt, its original mission was to eliminate the scourge of polio, a disease that afflicted so many children in the early 20th century. Ultimately, that challenge was met, and the March of Dimes shifted their focus to premature birth. Much progress has been made in addressing that problem, and the March of Dimes' campaign to encourage expectant mothers to take in enough folic acid has resulted in a 34% drop in neural tube defects in just a few short years. There's no way to quantify the number of children helped by the efforts of the March of Dimes. Who can know how many young expectant mothers learn from the educational programs sponsored by the March of Dimes, and subsequently change their habits, their diet, their understanding of what it is to become a mother. "Young women are often not educated about pregnancy," says Nelson. "We try to do a good job of that in our efforts to protect the health of babies." CV Oh baby, good treats for a good cause TOP CHEFS

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