In 1979 the Neurofibromatosis Mid-Atlantic Chapter started in my dining room in Mitchellville, Maryland. We mailed letters, seeking to identify families, to the local pediatricians listed in the Yellow Pages of the telephone directory. The Chapter needed an inexpensive way to reproduce information about the disorder and communicate with the families and health professionals about various resources and meetings we were scheduling.

The Washington Post published a feature article on the Mars family (that's right - the candy people) in McLean, Virginia just across the Potomac River. I wrote a letter to The Mars Foundation explaining the disorder, the support group just getting started, and the need for a copying machine to help make information available to families and physicians.

Knowing that a lot of different people make a high volume of copies in libraries, I visited the local library to find out the manufacturer of the copiers being purchased by the County Library System. The local representative for the manufacturer quoted us a good price for a tabletop copier - after hearing our story.

In less than a month after writing the letter to The Mars Foundation, we received a check for $2,000 for the copier. Until we moved into bona fide office space 10 years later, we used only that machine. We then obtained a donated copy machine with a much larger capacity. That is another story!

Mary Ann Wilson
Administrative Director
Neurofibromatosis, Inc.