I am nominating my twin 18 year old girls, Elyse and Morgan, because of their huge hearts to help others in a way that has never been done before. They have taken on a high school project (for the second year) to make a difference by gaining insight into what it is like to be an adult sibling of a person with special needs. They've created their own Facebook page so people globally can find them to take the survey which is now 300 strong from around the world. http://www.facebook.com/pages/Understanding-Adults-who-have-a-Sibling-wi... Below is what they wrote for people to understand what they are doing to make a big impact: -------------------- Our previous study focused on children (ages 5-17) who have a sibling with special needs. Thanks to the support of Don Meyer from the Sibling Support Project (www.siblingsupport.org) and other Sibshop organizers around the USA, we were able to send out over 1,300 surveys to siblings nationwide. The wonderful people at Parenting Special Needs magazine published many of our findings that we hope made a difference with many families. (http://parentingspecialneeds.org/article&article=263). In addition, we were privileged to be asked to present our findings at the 1st International Sibling Conference (Greenwich, CT, Summer 2010 http://siblingconference.org ). We were encouraged to continue with our research by so many adult siblings we met at the conference, so we are excited to be contacting you about our new study. It is our hope that by surveying numerous adults (18 years or older) that have a sibling with special needs, we will be able to gain a deeper understanding of this relationship in an effort to help as many people as possible. We are working in consultation with Dr. Ann Kaiser from Vanderbilt University (http://peabody.vanderbilt.edu/x4862.xml) and with support from Don Meyer, the co-founder and president of the National Sibling Support Project (www.siblingsupport.org), the Sibling Leadership Network (www.siblingleadership.org) and many others from the International Sibling Conference. AWARDS: 1st place in Team category (Behavior)/WESEF 2010 Tarrytown, NY (Westchester Science and Engineering Fair) 3rd place Internationally (Team Category) at Intel ISEF 2010, San Jose, CA (International Science and Engineering Fair) http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=45074&id=167689816581423 My husband, myself and our entire family is so very proud of our girls and hope they will be recognized with this amazing award you have provided. Thank you for all you are doing! Lori Blueglass