“Type 1 is an assault on the spirit and the body,” the Arcadia resident said. “You have to poke yourself six or eight times a day to get your blood sugar, and take between four and six insulin shots per day.”

Jones became involved with the organization 10 years ago when her then 18-year-old son Tim was diagnosed with the disease.

“It was the first major disease in the family, so it was numbing, it was a shock and I tried to read everything I could about the disease,” Jones said.

In all of the years that Jones has volunteered with Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation, she has worked on the black tie gala Promise Ball. This year’s gala took place last month at the JW Marriott Desert Ridge Resort and Spa in Phoenix, and was themed “From Monopoly to Millions in 10 Miraculous Years.”

The first year, the fundraiser was simply a Monopoly tournament in which people bought a chance to roll the dice and go once around the board, Jones said.

The foundation turned the tournament into a ball in 2001 and raised $600,000. Over the years, the ball has raised more than $13 million, $1.1 million in February.

“Anyone who has volunteered with JDRF will learn that volunteers are their most precious asset,” Jones said. “It started honestly could not be where it is today without volunteers.”

Jones has worked on various fundraisers and outreach programs, including working on a walk, supporting newly diagnosed children and their families and the kids’ walk.

For the kids’ walk, Jones would go to schools and talk about healthy eating for those at risk for Type 2, and health for those at risk for Type 1.

“We’d walk around the school and the kids would raise money,” she said. “That first year that I did it I think we raised about $35,000.”

While the gala is Jones’s favorite to organize, the kids’ walk is a close second.  This year’s Walk to Find a Cure for Type 1 Diabetes is set for Oct. 30.

Jones’s son Tim is now 28 and a philosophy major at Arizona State University. He said he hopes his mom’s work with the foundation will help future generations of children.
“It’s a lot better than it used to be,” Tim said. “If I was born 20 years before I was born, it’d be a little bit scary, but there have been advances especially with a lot of the charities and outreach programs.”

At the time that Hayes was diagnosed, he had been a lacrosse player in high school. When he began to drop weight unexpectedly, which is one of the symptoms of diabetes, his doctors initially diagnosed him as Type 2 because of his age.

“I was misdiagnosed, which happens occasionally with older people,” Tim said.

Type 1 diabetes usually affects children and means that the person is insulin dependent.
Type 2 diabetes means that the person is insulin resistant and their blood sugar may be controlled by diet.

Once properly diagnosed, he had to make lifestyle changes. The “staunch vegetarian” started eating meat to gain weight. Almost immediately after his diagnosis, Hayes moved to the East Coast to go to college.

“I did have issues with drinking and stuff, and it took me a while to figure out that you really can’t do that when you’re diabetic, especially when you’re in college because that’s just such a part of the social life,” he said.

“The big part is when you’re at that age, you don’t want to accept it,” Tim said.

He also had difficulties relating to his mother about his disease, Jones said.

“Tim, at 18, was like ‘It’s my disease, not yours, you don’t need to worry about me,’” Jones said. “Well, that’s not going to happen.”

Now, Tim said that he is more open with Jones about his diabetes.

“One thing my mom likes to say is when somebody gets a diagnosis, it’s a diagnosis for the whole family,” he said.

Check out last month's people profile, Dr. Belinda Barclay-White