Support S.A.M Giants Charity Of The Year

Posted on Thursday, January 28th, 2010 at 12:05 am

The LBM Belfast Giants will have a new look as they pull on special edition jerseys all in the name of charity this Saturday Night in the second game of a weekend double header against the Nottingham Panthers. The Giants are supporting their Charity of the Year SAM, a charity set up in Northern Ireland to raise money and awareness of Congenital Muscular Dystrophy. The specially commissioned jerseys have replaced Finn McCool on the front of the Giants jersey with the SAM logo and have been produced in the charities official colours of blue and yellow.

“We wanted to do something special for SAM and help them raise much needed money for their cause,” said Giants General Manager Todd Kelman “not only will this rasie money for the charity, but it will hopefully give people the opportunity to understand more about this disease.”

The charity Struggle Against Muscular Dystrophy was set up by a committee of volunteers from a variety of professional backgrounds in 2008. Shocked by the lack of public awareness of the disease and the chronic shortage of funding for research into Muscular Dystrophy the committee took the decision to apply for official charitable status in order to formalise our efforts to address these core issues. Their vision as a charity is to ultimately improve the treatment, quality of life and long term outlook for persons affected by Muscular Dystrophy through awareness, research, education and advocacy.

Thanks to the generosity of the people of Northern Ireland, SAM has already raised almost £200,000. This money is already being put to work. Thus far SAM has funded the entire set-up and year one running costs for the CMD International Patient Registry. This registry, which was launched to CMD patients, consultants and clinicians in August 2009, aims to capture vital information on disease subtypes and genetic mutations, and will eventually provide researchers and scientists with information on disease progression and subjects for clinical trials. This is a vital first step towards our goal of finding effective treatments for the CMDs.
 
In January 2010 the first SAM Translational Research Grants were awarded. Four promising research projects are receiving funding from SAM totalling over £175,000 to evaluate 3 promising CMD drug candidates.


“We believe that a focused investment in science will lead to CMD treatments which will bring hope to the many thousands of families whose lives have been affected by Congenital Muscular Dystrophy” announced William McCausland of SAM. “It is critical that we provide this level of financial support not just in year one, but also on an ongoing basis over the next 5-7 years in order to ensure that we reach our goal and maintain impetus.”

SAM is a zero cost charity – 100% of the money donated goes to researching this terrible disease. Every penny raised on Saturday Night and through the auction of these jerseys will go to funding additional research. For more information, to get involved or to donate to the Struggle Against Muscular Dystrophy please visit www.helpsam.info.

The doors to the Odyssey Arena open at 6:30pm on Friday, and the puck drops at 7:30pm. Saturday’s Game faces off at 7pm with doors opening at 6pm. All fans are encouraged to bring a donation for the S.A.M. bucket collection.