In just five days, on October 5, 2020, the Alzheimer’s stamp will be available for sale—again!
But it was never a given that this day would occur. In fact, the certainty was that this stamp’s inventory would be destroyed and not sold again after its solid two-year run. That’s what the federal regulations required for a stamp like this Alzheimer’s one. From November 30, 2017 through the end of November 2019, 8.2 million stamps were sold by the U.S. Postal Service (USPS), raising more than $1.06 million for Alzheimer’s research.
Now, after a 10-month hiatus, this Alzheimer’s “semipostal” stamp has not been destroyed and is once again alive. (A semipostal stamp is a type of first-class stamp sold to raise awareness and funds for a good cause).
The story behind how this happened has too many bureaucratic twists-and-turns for me to tell in a clear, explainable way. I get lost in the weeds just reading about it.
Let’s just say that the Alzheimer’s stamp still lives because of the efforts of two of the most tenacious persons I’ve met who worked with key congressional and postal leaders and with fellow advocates.
We are here, finally, thanks in large part to Kathy Siggins and Lynda Everman. You may remember them from my blog post two years ago, After 27 Years, Their Steadfast Dream for an Alzheimer’s Stamp Turns True. To be reminded of their tenacity and single-mindedness is well worth the read.
This time, the Alzheimer’s stamp will “remain on sale until the supply of stamps is exhausted OR the 10-year discretionary semipostal program concludes on November 30, 2027,” according to a USPS press release. Originally, 500 million stamps were printed, so there’s an ample supply to tap.
“Let’s hope we run out of stamps before November 2027,” says Lynda. Both Kathy and Lynda were caregivers for their late husbands living with Alzheimer’s, as Lynda also was for her father.
The Alzheimer’s stamp still costs $0.65 as long as the first-class stamp rate remains at $0.55. If as of October 5 you can’t find the stamps at your local post office you can order them online. Go to the USPS Postal Store Stamps category and in the search box type in “Alzheimer’s.” That should get you to the right spot; by then there may be a direct link as well, which I obviously don’t have at the time of this writing.
By law, 100 percent of the net amount raised is transferred to the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to support research and medical discoveries in the fight against Alzheimer’s disease.
Lynda Everman (left) and Kathy Siggins
Thank you, Kathy and Lynda, you’ve done your jobs and much more. So now it’s up to us and our networks of family and friends to buy and promote these stamps.
The stakes are high. The number of persons living with Alzheimer’s today in the U.S. is estimated at 5.8 million, according to the Alzheimer’s Association. Unless there’s some intervention, or a series of them, that number is expected to grow to an estimated 7.1 million by 2025 and to 13.8 million by 2050.
When my wife was diagnosed with early onset Alzheimer’s, those living with the disease in the U.S. were estimated at 2.3 million persons, according to an NIH report. That was in 1997 when Martha had just turned 50.
But as you and I know, these cold, hard figures do not begin to convey the pain, anguish, and frustration that arise from caring for someone with Alzheimer’s. For every person living with the disease, an estimated 2.75 family members are directly affected, according to the Alzheimer’s Association report. Translation: An estimated 21.8 million persons in this country are either living with this disease or voluntarily caring for their loved ones. That many people would form the third largest state in the country, behind California and Texas and ahead of Florida and New York.
In the case of our family, our three children were still in high school and college when Martha was diagnosed, and she lived another 17 years, the first ten at home and the final seven in a nursing home.
Another way you can help
Let me also remind you of another simple way to financially support Alzheimer’s research, and that’s through the Amazon Smile program. For any purchase I make on Amazon Smile, I’ve requested that a portion of that sale goes to the Alzheimer’s Association. A recent notice from Amazon indicated that its most recent quarterly donation to the Alzheimer’s Association was $121,952.72. (No, that wasn’t just from my purchases.) To date, $771,410.73 has been donated. Please click this link to Amazon Smile to sign up if interested. Amazon Smile does not add to your cost; it takes a cut out of the purchase price.
In closing, I encourage you to buy as many stamps as you can afford. Then forward this post to all your family and friends. Encourage them to buy as many stamps as they can afford. Then ask them to forward it to their entire network of family and friends. And then on and on and on. Kathy and Lynda have done their part. Friends, let’s do our part!
Until next time,
Carlen
carlen@carlenmaddux.com
www.carlenmaddux.com
PS1 If you’d like to sign up for my blog, there’s no charge; just click here.
PS2 My book, A Path Revealed: How Hope, Love, and Joy Found Us Deep in a Maze Called Alzheimer’s, can be ordered from any bookstore or found on Amazon. I share our family’s 17-year odyssey of living with this disease. But Alzheimer’s is not the focus of our story; it’s the context. The focus is the spiritual odyssey that unfolded before us, sometimes in strange and surprising ways, other times in the most ordinary of ways.
