Gala raises awareness for sickle cell disease
September is Sickle Cell Awareness Month, and one Detroit man is getting the word out about the disease by holding an event that infused entertainment and information.
It was a night of high fashion, music, and catered food.
"I'm big on infusing entertainment into educational elements that kind of considers edutainment. So it is infusing that moment of performances and music and dance or whatever, whatever you have. From a performing arts standpoint, and then infusing that informational piece into the experience."
Alex Hill hosted the event he named The Humble Hill Experience… He says he was inspired by his cousin who has been living with the disease his whole life.
"The different things that he's gone through health-wise and different crises and things. Medication and hospitalizations. And just want to give back.
Most people at this event were African American. Which could be very impactful, as the disease is most common in people of sub-Saharan African descent. According to the CDC, Sickle Cell Disease occurs in about 1 out of every 365 African-American births. And 1 out of every 16,300 Hispanic-American births.
"So that affects the minority community a lot. So it's really educating them and make sure that they understand this particular disease and know how to really respond to it, you know, get tested and all that good things."
Clifton Kirkman II, the inspiration for tonight's swore talks about the hardships of living with the disease.
"It can be tough. And how we explain it is that you can have sickle cell, but everyone's like a snowflake. Everyone's different," said Kirkman. "So everyone's journey is totally different. There are people who have experiences where they're hospitalized all the time, whereas others are not as often. Some people experience, like myself, where they have to have chronic blood transfusions every four weeks or once a month."
Kirkman encourages everyone who hasn't done so, to make sure they get tested.