Why do HISD employees give to the Combined Charities Campaign each year?
The answers are as varied as the people who donate to this annual district fundraiser, but for Carolyn Travis, who serves as a secretary at Yates High School, the answer lies in a diagnosis she received almost two decades ago.
“I give to the Crohn’s & Colitis Foundation every year,” said Travis. “I was diagnosed with ulcerative colitis almost 20 years ago, and was hospitalized for 14 days because I wasn’t aware of what was happening to me. Growing up, I was very seldom sick and didn’t have a regular doctor up until then.”
Travis says that her reasons for donating are two-fold. First, she wants scientists to find a cure, but until that day comes, she wants more doctors to check patients for Crohn’s and colitis, and for the information distributed on these diseases to be updated.
“I was given pamphlets to read and was told that it normally happens between the age of 20 and 30 years, which was not accurate,” she said. “It could happen at any time. And since I’ve been diagnosed, I have been able to help two other parents with young girls. One made several trips to the doctor with her 11-year-old daughter and was told they couldn’t find the problem. I told her to ask her doctor to check for colitis, and turns out it was colitis. Later, my niece started having the same symptoms.”
For more information, please visit the CCC website.
Why do you give? To share your story, please send an email to info@houstonisd.org. This will be the first in a short series of articles on why employees contribute. Check back next week for the second installment.