KINGSTON – The University of Rhode Island’s Center for Vector-Borne Disease has received a $100,000 donation from the Westerly-based Apple Pickers Foundation, to support the center’s efforts to prevent tick bites and Lyme disease.
The group supports “expertly planned projects for enterprising worthy causes,” said Michael Warburg, a foundation trustee, who earned his master’s degree in accounting at URI.
“We’ve been keenly interested in the Lyme disease field and have been looking for ways to help address this serious public health problem,” Warburg said in a statement. The nonprofit made the donation after meeting with the center’s director, URI Entomology Prof. Thomas Mather.
“We observed that there is significant funding available for research, but that there is a critical lack of focus on awareness and education,” Warburg said. “It was with this in mind that Dr. Mather’s work became a compelling proposition for us.” The Apple Pickers focus on providing grant support projects that may be too small to attract the attention of larger foundations or that otherwise may have limited appeal to other funding agencies.
“The only sure way to avoid Lyme disease is to prevent tick bites - a message that needs to be clearly conveyed to those at risk,” Warburg added. “Dr. Mather is sparing no effort to get this message across to the general public.”
Mather – who came to URI in 1992, from the Harvard School of Public Health – will use the money to expand and improve his tick-education Web site, www.TickEncounter.org, adding animations to illustrate tick-bite prevention strategies and an online tool for calculating an individual’s tick-bite risk; and to complete a documentary film about ticks and Lyme disease that will be posted to YouTube and used in outreach efforts.
“I am so pleased with the very generous support from the Apple Pickers Foundation,” Mather said in a statement. “It will greatly advance our efforts to raise people’s consciousness about avoiding tick bites, to encourage people to take just a few simple actions to prevent tick bites and disease.
“Tick-transmitted diseases can be devastating, and so often people think it won’t happen to them. But in Rhode Island, Lyme or another tick infection probably has already struck someone they know,” Mather said.
“Support from the Apple Pickers Foundation will truly make a difference to the health of Rhode Islanders.”
The Apple Pickers’ gift is part of URI’s Making a Difference campaign, which seeks to raise $100 million to recruit and retain faculty, enhance the campus experience, provide scholarships and finance academic and research initiatives.
To learn more about URI’s Making a Difference campaign, visit www.advance.uri.edu/giving/.
