VERONA, Wis. (WMTV) – Students living with Type 1 Diabetes in Verona are finding comfort and friendship by sharing their experiences with one another.
In early January, 18 students living with T1D got together for a first of it’s kind meet-up. It’s called the T1D Mentorship Group and it was organized by Kelly Borelli, who works as a nurse at Sugar Creek Elementary School.
“Over the last five years that I’ve worked as a school nurse, I’ve noticed in taking care of students with diabetes that they always wanted to know who each other were. They wanted to talk to them,” said Borelli.
The students ranged from first graders to seniors in high school.
“The students were so excited they were a little bit nervous at first. They didn’t know who was going to be there and what to expect,” said Borelli.
One of those students is Olivia Meyer. She’s a 6th grader at Badger Ridge Middle School and lives with type 1.
“It’s hard but it’s kind of cool because people ask you questions about it,” she said.
Meyer attended the first-ever T1D Mentorship Group meeting and thought the experience was positive.
“It was really cool because when you meet those people, even if you haven’t seen them before, there is just that level of comfort and safety,” she said. “Like if a beep goes off (on an insulin monitor) everyone laughs. They aren’t looking around like what was that.”
Borelli says watching the kids interact was something special.
“It was so moving,” Borelli said. “I had so much fun. I wish they could be there for longer. Even after they left, they were like ‘when are we going to do our next one? ‘can we be there for longer? we want more of these!’. The feedback was overwhelmingly positive from both the students and parents, they want more.”
Borelli believes for the parents, this experience really was beneficial to them as well.
“I had multiple parents reach out to me and say ‘thank you so much this is all she’s been talking about for a week’,” she said. “So you just do it for them.”
A couple more T1D Mentorship Group meetings are already on the calendar. They have one scheduled for March and one in May.
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