June is Alzheimer’s and Brain Awareness Month, a time to shine a purple light for the millions of people living with Alzheimer’s Disease.

A group of Iowans, joined 1,100 others from across the country, gathered at the nation’s capital recently to meet with members of Congress and lobby for more funding to help fight the disease.  Among them was Perry resident Bob Nevitt who became an advocate for the fight against Alzheimer’s after losing his wife Barbara to the disease in 2013.

“We met with each one of our Senators and Representatives from Iowa, there was 13 of us and we met with them all.  We pled our case and told them our stories and so far we’ve had a lot of commitment for getting involved with funding more research and the HOPE (for Alzheimer’s) Act and things of that nature.”

Bob and Barbara’s daughter Heather Nevitt Van Lin also made that trip to Washington D.C. and says they’ve already gotten signatures from Senator Joni Ernst and Congressman David Young.

“We do have the support behind it and we’ve been raising a lot of awareness around the elections coming up.  The other thing is we are asking for $300 million more in research funding to (the National Institutes of Health) so that we can put our money where our mouth is pretty much and try to get the cure that we need for this disease.”

Nevitt and Van Lin will be our guests on today’s Let’s Talk Dallas County to talk more about their passion for this cause and the efforts they are doing to help find a cure.

Tune in to AM 1310 KDLS to more of our conversation during the 9am, noon and 5pm hours.