On Thursday, Sept. 21, co-presidents Madison Ocasio and Ghasag Abdelrahim held the Diabetes Awareness Club first meeting of the year.

The club meeting addressed the importance and impact of diabetes. Ocasio and Abdelrahim decided to start this club to support fellow diabetics and people associated with diabetes and show  what diabetes truly is and not how it’s portrayed.

Throughout the meeting, Ocasio talked about her story and her journey of being a Type 1 Diabetic, which affects 5 percent of diabetics.

“I’ve been a type 1 diabetic for about 5 years, [and] I’ve come across countless amounts of people that have no idea what my condition is,” said Ocasio.

Running this club helps to reach out to the community so people can be educated on the importance of diabetes. Members are gaining more of an understanding to help make a change and to work along the community. Members like Emily Baez decided to join the club to show support and raise awareness of Diabetes.

The Diabetes Awareness Club hopes to grow more and more to be able to address this to the community, and plan to work alongside the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation, a charitable organization  dedicated to funding diabetes research to improve the lives of diabetics and fight for a cure.

“We hope to spread awareness across our whole school about what diabetes really is, raise money and donate it all to the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation,” Ocasio said.

This chronic condition results result in a high blood glucose where the body can’t produce insulin on its own, affects 371 million people worldwide, and joining this club will help raise awareness.

The Diabetes Awareness Club next meeting will take place on Oct. 19 in room 7-209.