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Brain injuries affect more than 11,000 local families each year; local foundation “struggling” for funds to continue helping patients and families, including wounded veterans
August 26, 2011 
(San Diego)--"When a person suffers a traumatic brain injury, it’s like a bomb explodes in the middle of the family," a release from San Diego Brain Injury Foundation observes. "Everyone is thrown into an emotional crisis and immersed in a medical emergency. Their lives are changed forever."
Recovery for the injured person will be long and the outcome uncertain. While some families adjust and hold things together, other families are at risk of falling apart.
The San Diego Brain Injury Foundation helps struggling families by providing information, referring them to specialized agencies and services, producing educational DVDs, publishing a Brain Injury Guide for Families, operating a long-term residential care facility called Howard House, offering emotional support and more.
But now, SDBIF is struggling—financially. “The last few years have been financially difficult for many nonprofits, including our organization,” says Sue Hansen, chief operating officer of the SDBIF. “Unless we turn things around quickly, we won’t be able to continue providing services. Hopefully, our upcoming fundraiser will help us get us back on track.”
The public is invited to the SDBIF Friendraiser, an evening under the stars with wine, hors d’ouvres, a silent auction, art, Native American music, flute player, and astronomers with telescopes. The event will be held at the Mission Trails Regional Park on Mission Gorge Rd. on Oct. 22, 2011 from 6-8:30 pm. A Mission Trails guide dressed as George Cowles, after whom Cowles Mountain is named, will greet arriving guests. He will be in period clothes from the 1870s.
Cost is $50. To register, call 619.294-6541 or go to www.sdbif.org. Proceeds will be used to provide support and services to brain injured survivors and their families.
• “No one prepares for a brain injury. But it can happen without warning to anyone,” says Patsy Sholders, president of the SDBIF board of directors, and herself a brain injury survivor. “Brain injuries can be caused by car accidents, military service, falls, sports injuries, accidents at work, or strokes.”
Links to related information, photos, videos:
• For information about the San Diego Brain Injury Foundation, www.sdbif.org.
• For information about the Mission Trails Regional Park, www.mtrp.org
• To view images of last year’s Friendraiser on Flickr, http://www.sdbif.org/events_friend_raiser.html
• To view images of Howard House residents, http://www.sdbif.org/howard_house.html .
• To view a video “How Parents Cope When a Child is Brain Injured,” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZGpuLgq2PM0
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