Key Congressional Supporter Meets Baton Rouge Constituent

By Catherine Kane
Special to epilepsyfoundation.org
Posted: March 29, 2006

Seventeen year old Lynette Navarre from Baton Rouge got a head start on her Capitol Hill meetings during the Kids Speak Up! photo with Senator David Vitter (R-LA), a strong supporter of epilepsy programs and a member of the Senate Budget Committee, which recently amended the Fiscal Year 2007 Budget to add $7 billion for public health funding.  Lynette, who has uncontrollable idiopathic epilepsy, will meet with Senators Vitter and Landrieu and Congressman Richard Baker on Thursday. She and her family will share their story and petition their representatives to support funding for epilepsy programs and to ensure that the Medicaid program continues to be a safety net for people with disabilities and people with low incomes.

"If there's a chance to even make a small difference, you've got to take it and run with it. And that's what I'm doing," Lynette asserts. Her journey to Capitol Hill was actually started in ninth grade civics class, when she wrote a letter about epilepsy to Congressman Baker.  Lynette, an aspiring writer who hopes to attend the Louisiana State University School of Journalism, currently pens for her publications class, yearbook and school newspaper. She notices details and paints her stories with these details, a skill that will be useful when persuading her Members of Congress.

Epilepsy educator Holly Guess speaks of the young advocate in glowing terms. "She is a wonderful, bright, funny girl who is a joy to be around," she said, reporting that last year Lynette's team raised the most money for the Epilepsy Foundation Louisiana's first annual Seize the Day -- Help Conquer Epilepsy 5K Run/Walk. Lynette's mother, a banker, has also been instrumental in supporting the affiliate office. Lynette noted that her mother has also devised strategies for distributing the red Seize the Day beads that Lynette and her sister's friend, a jewelry designer, created as their "leave-behinds" for meetings. 

Some epilepsy-related challenges frustrate Lynette, including not being able to drive and having memory loss, but she faces them head-on and plans ways to minimize their effects on her life. She says she would like to live in a big city one day, where "everything is in reach" by walking or taking public transportation. She also has been writing since her seizures started in fifth grade and plans to get the "bits and pieces everywhere" together. This well spoken young woman with a keen sense of detail has a clear sense of her long term path in journalism and also a plan and a personal message for her representatives on Capitol Hill.