[VO] Parkinson’s disease, congenital heart defects, Alzheimer’s disease and Diabetes. Do you know the symptoms? How about the causes? Awareness and knowledge of these diseases is something that 4^th year St. Thomas student Jeremy Varner is hoping to get across.

[Clip: Jeremy Varner]“I decided to make the foundation and educate some people so that way if they do have one of these symptoms, they don’t brush it off as something else, like we did, and maybe just look a bit deeper and see that it could be one of these illnesses.”

[VO] An event recently held on campus by Varner, included slideshows, youtube videos and his own personal experiences with each of the four illnesses. The night also included a bit of fundraising for charities of the illnesses that took part as a raffle draw. Items raffled off included gift certificates for different Fredericton stores, along with autographed cds from artists such as Billy Talent, and other notable items which he worked hard to get.

[Clip: Jeremy Varner]“I sat on my computer or my television and whenever a commercial would come on, I would say ‘Hey maybe I should contact them’, Sue Johansson, I just happened to have a poster of her in my room from when she visited STU, I figured it wouldn’t hurt just to e-mail her and ask her if she would be interested in donating a prize for a good cause and then lo and behold she donated two autographed books.”

[VO] The event, which drew in a small crowd, was said to be his tester. He hopes to continue with these events and spread out more into the community.

[Clip: Jeremy Varner]“I’m starting here at STU, I hopefully want to branch out maybe into UNB and then get out into the high schools. The illnesses know no age and no demographic so everyone should at least know a little about each one. Hopefully I can get that message to them.”

[VO] For STU Journalism, I’m Corinne Frost.

See the video here!