SCDAA of Southern Connecticut | Home Page | 2016 GALA:
"A Message From The Chairman of the Board of Directors
Dear Friends and Colleagues:
For more than 30 years the Sickle Cell Disease Association of America, Southern CT has engaged and been supportive of the families and individuals impacted by Sickle Cell Disease. We have further been the lead organization promoting awareness and education to all youth throughout Southern Connecticut.
We are coming off of a very successful year in that many new initiatives, programs and legislative successes were accomplished, including new partnerships to help us achieve our broad mission. We are particularly pleased with the efforts of our traditional partners, the New Haven Firebird Society, in bringing to our collective efforts new resources and awareness. They coordinated and executed the first fire department-sponsored Boot Drive in the Northeast exclusively for Sickle Cell Disease. Additionally, our Annual Walk-A-Thon continues to grow with more and more community partners joining our efforts and we are looking forward this year to our 25th Annual celebratory Walk-A-Thon.
Legislatively, we were able to work closely with new partners to successfully testify before the Connecticut State's Medical Board to include Sickle Cell on the listing of diseases covered under the state's new medical marijuana law.
Clearly our efforts continue as a priority to include representation from families and individuals on our Board of Directors, which significantly strengthens our ability to maintain our focus and resources.
As hopefully everyone can see, we have invested significantly in a new cutting edge web page so we can better communicate with our constituents, our partners and our community. The latter has been particularly important to our efforts to strengthen our capacity to serve the Sickle Cell community locally, regionally and globally.
This year we hope to create a dedicated Sickle Cell Community Center to support our families and the sickle cell community. We are working on the first in the nation home infusion program that will allow some patients to receive needed infusion services in their own home to avoid a possible preventable hospital admission. We are establishing scholarships for our youth whose goals include attending college; and finally, we are working with many partners to contribute to minimizing the number of children who die annually in such countries as Nigeria, where less than 25 percent of children reach the age of 5.
Indeed, your Sickle Cell Disease Association of America, Southern CT remains committed and excited that our board has chosen to be very proactive in the service of our constituents and we will of course call on our clients and partners to continue to support these critical, broad initiatives to better serve the Sickle Cell community.
Hope to see all our clients, partners and community on April 22, 2016 at our 30th annual Sickle Cell Gala to celebrate the Past, the Present and the Future.
Sincerely,
James E. Rawlings MPH
Chairman of the Board of Directors
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