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 April showers
bring May flowers ...
... or so the saying goes. Be sure to read this month’s
CHCWI newsletter where we are sure you’ll find a few interesting
facts and some food for thought.
Featured this month:
A Note from Gary
Spring is here in Wisconsin! Snow, sleet and opening day
at Miller Park … Ah, Wisconsin!
Even with the lingering last gasps of winter, we are all preparing for a
full return to the outdoors and the incredible number of activities we
enjoy. From simply getting outside for a refreshing walk in the park, to
fishing, boating and to the events that are so important to all our
member charities. I urge you to participate in as many as possible. The
number of causes you can support are abundant. All of these events
reflect a deep-seated passion for the well-being of all Badgers and the
amazing quality of life with which we are blessed.
Something new for Community Health Charities of Wisconsin and nationally,
is our new look, or branding. Our office has sent the new logos file to
all of our member charities last week, in response to some of our members
who had already noticed the change. These files can be used in your
constituent communications and any co-branding opportunities that are
being presented.
And as always, I hope you had a happy bunny day!
Gary
Could you Be The Match?
When their 10-year-old daughter Laura was diagnosed with leukemia, Robert
Graves, D.V.M., and his wife, Sherry, were ready to do anything they
could to save her. They agreed to try a bone marrow transplant from
an unrelated donor — the first ever for a leukemia patient.
Laura received her transplant in 1979 at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer
Research Center. The treatment gave her an extra year and a half of life.
And it inspired Dr. Graves to launch a quest to create a
national registry of volunteers willing to donate bone marrow. His early
efforts brought together other patient families and transplant doctors,
spurring a federal mandate that led to the creation of the National
Marrow Donor Program®
(NMDP), now known as Be The Match®.
The NMDP began connecting patients with unrelated donors in 1987 with a
registry of just 10,000 volunteers. Today, the organization’s Be The
Match Registry® has grown to
more than 10.5 million donors and nearly 185,000 umbilical cord
blood units, the largest and most racially and ethnically diverse
registry of its kind in the world.
Medical advances are making marrow and umbilical cord blood transplants
available to more patients all the time. Since the NMDP began operations
in 1987, it has facilitated more than 55,000 transplants to give patients
a second chance at life. Today, the organization facilitates more than
5,800 transplants a year.
As a leader in the field of marrow and cord blood transplantation, the
NMDP and Be The Match work every day to connect patients, doctors, donors
and researchers to the resources they need. To help people of every
racial and ethnic background live longer, healthier lives, the
organization:
- Offers people the
unique opportunity to save a life through Be The Match
- Adds more members and
donated umbilical cord blood to the Be The Match Registry every day
- Supports patients with
resources and services to reduce barriers to transplant and improve
their quality of life after transplant
- Educates doctors about
transplant advances and patient care post transplant
- Conducts and supports
cutting-edge research to advance the science of transplant
- Develops innovative
tools, systems and services so they can continue to increase the
number of patients they serve
Building for the future
Many more patients still need their help and they are working to meet
this need, but can’t do it alone. The NMDP and Be The Match’s efforts are
sustained by:
- A network of
relationships with donor centers, transplant centers, cord blood
banks, and registries in 41 countries
- Agreements with
cooperative donor registries and cord blood banks worldwide through
which they provide patients access to nearly 20.5 million donors and
more than 590,000 cord blood units
- The U.S. government,
which has entrusted them to operate the C.W. Bill Young Cell
Transplantation Program, the federal program supporting bone marrow
and cord blood donation and transplantation
- Partnerships with
corporations, service organizations, student groups, faith-based
communities and other organizations
- Collaborative efforts
by representatives of all facets of transplantation in a System
Capacity Initiative (SCI) to analyze and recommend solutions to
support the increase in patients needing transplant
- People like you
April is National Sexually Transmitted Disease (STD)  Education and Awareness Month
Community Health Charities of
Wisconsin is happy to welcome new member, STD Specialties Clinic in
Milwaukee.
STD Specialties Clinic provides
specialized healthcare to all populations, with actual or perceived
Sexually Transmitted Diseases, through consultation, testing, treatment
and follow-up, with compassion and understanding in a respectful and
confidential manner.
The professionals at STD Specialties Clinic have shared with us a few
facts about sexually transmitted diseases. For more information,
visit their website or the Center for Disease
Control at cdc.gov.
Here are some i
Important STD facts that may
surprise you:
- Many STDs don’t have
symptoms. It is important to get yourself tested.
- One in two sexually
active people will get an STD by the age of 25 and most won’t know
it.
- Most STDs are curable
and all are treatable or manageable.
- More than 50 percent
of sexually active people will get HPV (genital warts) at some point
in their lives.
- One in five people
living with HIV in the U.S. doesn’t know they are positive.
- Chlamydia is the
number one most reported STD in the U.S.
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