Moira McCarthy

Longtime Breakthrough T1D Volunteer & Outreach Speaker

Newspaper Columnist

When award-winning reporter and magazine writer Moira McCarthy’s daughter Lauren Stanford was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes at the start of her kindergarten year, Moira thought two things: the world as we know it is ending, and I’ll never write about diabetes.

Flash forward almost 15 years. Lauren is a college student in Washington DC, living a full and active life. Moira, still a newspaper columnist (Check out the Boston Herald Sports Section every Wednesday from November to April to read her acclaimed outdoor sports and skiing column “Powder Shots,” or flip open a copy of SKI Magazine or Ski Area Management Magazine to find her there. Better yet, do what she does sometimes when she’s feeling down: “I think of the Steve Martin character in ‘The Jerk.’ Then I open up amazon.com on my computer, type in my name and hit ‘search.’ When the five books I’ve written come up, I jump up and down and yell (to only the cat — no one else usually is around or cares) ‘I’m somebody! I’m somebody!”

Moira entered the blogger world against her will — she had no intention of starting one. But after being asked to guest post at the fabulous diabetesmine.com, and seeing the incredible response to her guest blog, Moira got thinking: maybe I do need to join this world. And thus, Despite Diabetes was born.

Moira is also a top volunteer for diabetes, having been named Breakthrough T1D’s International Volunteer of the Year in 2007 and served as National Chair of Breakthrough T1D’s International Board’s Outreach Committee and Government Grass Roots Advocacy Committee, as well as ChairMom of JDRF’s Children’s Congress, the foundation’s largest and most visible event.