Baby Deer Gives Back
Donating part of our sales has been at the core of Baby Deer from the beginning. Our Cookie of the Month Club began as a way to combine creativity with community and now, both our Cookie and Scone of the Month clubs donate 15% of proceeds each month. We also curate an annual Tea Party menu for Blue Sunday in May and donate 100% of the profits.
This year, I’m so thrilled to support two organizations that have an enormous personal significance to me and, indirectly, on Baby Deer. Solve ME and MeAction Network fill an enormous need for awareness, advocacy, research and support for the millions of people living with ME/CFS (myalgic encephalomyelitis/ chronic fatigue syndrome) and Long Covid. Both illness face serious stigma, misunderstanding, and lack of medical and systemic support and Solve ME and MEAction are invaluable lifelines for patients, family members, and medical providers alike.
Thank you for being part of the Baby Deer family and for helping us give back. Learn more about both organizations below and join us for some treats that do good.
ME Action brings together chronically ill (often housebound) patients, their families, friends, and allies to make a positive impact for people with myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS).
Solve ME’s grants act as a catalyst for critical research into diagnostics, treatments, and cures for ME/CFS, Long Covid and related conditions. Each spring, Solve’s Advocacy Week empowers patients, scientists, and allies to share their stories with Congress- last year almost 200 meetings were held.
Why ME/CFS Charities?
I was diagnosed with ME/CFS in 2023- giving an official name to the health issues that completely upended my life beginning a year before. ME Action was instrumental in both learning to adapt to life with a disabling condition and in advocating for the medical support and diagnosis I needed. Despite being relatively common, most doctors have outdated or (worse) dangerously inaccurate information, if they know about it at all.
ME Action and Solve have been my core sources of information and support since my illness began. Their resources for patients, caregivers, and medical professionals are instrumental in receiving safer, more informed, and better care. Personally, the opportunities to connect, collaborate, and advocate alongside fellow people with ME has been a lifeline- giving me a virtual community when my ability to connect in-person evaporated overnight. While there is, as yet neither a cure nor an FDA-approved treatment option, Solve, MEAction, patients and healthy allies are striving often from bed) to make them realities.
ME/CFS is characterized by Post-Exertional Malaise (PEM), a delayed, profound increase in symptoms following mental, physical, emotional, or sensory exertion. PEM is unique to ME/CFS and can take days, weeks, or months to resolve.
Source: https://me-pedia.org/wiki/Post-exertional_malaise
25% of people with ME/CFS are bed-bound. 70-75% are unable to work, even part time
Source: https://solvecfs.org/me-cfs-long-covid/
An estimated 9 million people live with ME/CFS in the U.S. alone
Source: https://solvecfs.org/me-cfs-long-covid/about-the-disease/
Researchers estimate that 84-91% of people with ME/CFS are undiagnosed.
Source: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6331450/
ME/CFS prevalence is estimated to have increased five-fold since 2020
Source: https://www.nih.gov/news-events/news-releases/nih-funded-study-finds-cases-me/cfs-increase-following-sars-cov-2
23 million people live with Long Covid in the U.S, up to 50% of those meet the diagnostic criteria for ME/CFS
Source: https://solvecfs.org/me-cfs-long-covid/