It's the last day of the Miss Tennessee social media challenge! Today is #ServiceSaturday- service, for me, is the most important point of the @missamerica crown- and I've decided to post about my platform issue, Alzheimer's Disease. My family has lost 4 family members to this Terrible disease, and currently 110,000 tennesseeans are living with Alzheimer's disease and 5.4 million Americans are as well. This disease robs people of their memories and ability to live independently, and it claims a new victim every 66 seconds. Most of the caregivers for people with Alzheimer's are their children and grandchildren, and many caregivers still are in high school and college. I remember visiting my grandfather in his nursing home and holding his hand while watching his favorite programs and listening to music from the 1940s that he loved. Alzheimer's took away the essence of the grandpa that I knew. It took away his independence, his ability to live on his own, his ability to walk on his own, and to eat on his own. There isn't a day that goes by that I don't think about how much I miss my grandfather. My mom, his daughter, had to become a parent to grandpa. She was his caregiver- She became his everything. Every single day this happens to another child, another grandchild. Another family is robbed of memories every 66 seconds. And that's why I'm an advocate. That's why I serve as the @alzassociation state congressional advocate for Tennessee and national ambassador. That's why I've travelled to Washington for 3 consecutive years. That's why I've lobbied our nation's leaders. Because we can't afford to keep losing Americans to Alzheimer's. Because it's time we started making memories every 66 seconds. #CountdownToTheTNCrown #MissTNClassof17 #GoingToJackson #MissTennessee #MissAmerica #MissScenicCity (at Washington, District of Columbia)