A.J. Jacobs is a bestselling author whose books include The Year of Living Biblically, The Know-It-All and Drop Dead Healthy. Jacobs is an NPR commentator and the editor at large at Esquire. He is also the founder of the Global Family Reunion, an event inspired by Jacobs’ discovery of online genealogy services and his own countless connections to strangers across the globe.
The Global Family Reunion centers on the idea that we are all related – and families do whatever they can to support each other. In this spirit, Jacobs decided to use the Reunion to raise funds for Alzheimer’s disease, a condition that has touched nearly every family in some way. Jacobs’ grandfather suffered from dementia, and Jacobs saw firsthand how the disease can devastate a family. The problem of Alzheimer’s may be too big for any immediate family to solve, but if we can bring our global extended family together to tackle it, we’ll be well on our way to stopping the disease.