Oct 28, 2024
A Great Goal to Reach
Ryan Romine
October is almost over and that means the window for our Awareness in Action campaign is about to close.
A quick reminder: an anonymous individual from the SCI community has offered to match all donations to U2FP, up to $100,000, through the end of October. This campaign has helped U2FP continue to secure the funds we need for our multi-pronged work to educate and advocate for research that will cure paralysis.
These are just a few of the amazing individuals who have given their time, talent and treasure to U2FP these last two months. Jason Biundo (second from left), a doctoral candidate at Harvard Medical School and poster presenter at this year’s conference, bonds with symposium newbies Mason Branstrator (left), Matt Edwards (second from right) and Jared Potter (right) at U2FP’s Annual Symposium in Atlanta last month.
Remember, U2FP doesn’t believe in just throwing money at a problem (have we cured cancer yet?). Instead we work strategically and collaboratively to accelerate the pace of discovery, anticipating obstacles and transforming them into opportunities. We are always seeking to improve the relationships between those who research the injury and those who live with it (e.g., our Lab Rats initiative, or our Annual Symposium which brings all the stakeholders together).
We received another $10,000 in collective giving last week and are now less than $30k away from our goal! But we only have until midnight on Halloween (how’s that for ominous) to double every dollar up to one hundred grand. Can you chip in and help us turn awareness into action?
If you’ve already given - thank you! Your gift was doubled and is helping U2FP creatively connect more people from the SCI and Scientific communities to partner in effective collaborations.
A great example of this is the study Dr. Jen Dulin presented last month at our symposium, which brought U2FP SCI advocates together with Dr. Dulin’s colleagues at Texas A&M to track SCI research funding over the last 10 years. Their provocative findings are intended to “lead to the development of a living ‘SCI research map’ with a searchable interface so that researchers and community members can identify funded projects near them for collaboration.”
Jen Dulin, PhD, (right) poses with Kajana Satkunendrarajah, PhD, (left) at U2FP’s symposium in Atlanta last month. Dr. Satkunendrarajah has joined us in advocating for an SCI research bill in Wisconsin, while Dr. Dulin has collaborated with U2FP on a recent meta-analysis: Spinal Cord Injury Research Projects Analysis: Where is the money going?
Or consider our ongoing momentum in Wisconsin where we’ve gained even more legislative supporters for our $3M SCI Research grant bill and now have the backing of Paralyzed Veterans of America and the Wisconsin American Legion along with even more legislators. Passing this bill would bring our total legislative funding for smart, community backed SCI research to $43M - a number that will continue to grow with each new funding cycle!
And our educational acumen is here to help you distinguish hope from hype. Sam Maddox’s Headline Patrol series breaks down SCI ‘miracle’ stories into contextualized pieces of usable information, helping you navigate the science that is often obscured by the media. It’s information you can trust that you won’t find anywhere else. (Stay tuned for an upcoming Headline Patrol on the Griffith University Phase I human clinical trial you’ve been hearing about lately.)
So take this opportunity to double your support for the great work U2FP continues to do and help us meet our $100,000 goal by Halloween night!
Join us!
