As a young person and an active member within the Persian community of NorCal, me and my friends are always looking for a way to throw a party or participate in events. When my 15th birthday was coming around, me and my friend Roz, who was turning 13 decided it was time to throw ourselves a birthday party.

The only problem we were confronted with was what to do about presents. We couldn’t ask everyone to bring us two presents, and there wasn’t anything that we wanted or needed anyway. Then we realized that instead of receiving presents we could just donate our presents and not just to any foundation, but to PACI. We wanted to help people with cancer and we believe PACI has a very noble focus. After being confronted with cancer within my own family several times, I was constantly looking for a way to help out, but most other foundations would not allow me to do much other than donate, but PACI gave us a chance to do more.

After our great success in raising money at the party and talking with the inspirational Mrs.Sader, we decided to get sign ups from all of our friends and start a group in Northern California to support PACI. Mrs.Sadler then even took the time to fly out here and meet with all of us and tell us more about PACI. She brought with her t-shirts for us to sell and brochures to pass out, so we took the initiative and began passing stuff out at every community gathering which we could. We soon became aware of the IWSF conference taking place in Berkeley and decided it would be the perfect opportunity to promote PACI.

We had a table there where we sold t-shirts, gave out pamphlets, and told people about PACI. We successfully sold many t-shirts and enjoyed being a part of such a great cause. PACI has become a great part of our lives and we look forward to much more cooperation with them. -Mitra