It's been an exciting few days for our Cure Advocacy Network (CAN) - this time in Wisconsin. It's been over 2 years in the making, but last week we attended a press conference at 1 pm, called by Rep. Jimmy Anderson (our champion legislator who has an SCI) to formally introduce our Bill proposing to establish $10 million in funding SCI research that is pursuant of functional recovery from paralysis. (Read the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel article here).
It has taken a lot of collaborative work from our Wisconsin CAN advocates to get to this moment. And while we're excited to finally have a Bill under consideration, we know this is just the beginning. And we're going to need your help!
If you live in Wisconsin - email Jake Beckstrom (U2FP's CAN Manager) so we can contact you about legislative meetings and on-the-ground mobilization efforts. If you don't live in Wisconsin, there's still a ton you can do, which includes staying tuned to our social media pages (WI CAN Facebook, U2FP Facebook and Twitter) when we put the call out to contact Wisconsin legislators.
Remember: you do NOT have to live in Wisconsin to call, email or write and express your support for this Bill.
Please gear up your social media circles and help us get the word out. You can start right now by sharing this story!
As with the $1M SCI Research Bill our Pennsylvania CAN advocates helped pass last year, this legislation being introduced will set up an advisory board that will have SCI community members (along with researchers and clinicians) to decide what research projects get funded, and to what end. This guarantees the SCI community has the voice and connections to prioritize funding studies of chronic injuries and research that is oriented toward Cures.
We will be sharing our stories of living with SCI and the critical importance of our efforts to bring about cures. In the coming days and weeks, we will be posting on U2FP’s Facebook and Twitter pages to ask our friends and supporters to call into those legislators and ask for their support of the Bill.
We ask you to please share those posts onto your social media platforms. Legislators need to hear from as many people as possible, whether they live in Wisconsin, elsewhere in the US and all over the World. Every call matters. With your abundance of social media followers reading and caring about what you say, we hope to build a Community Voice - The Voice of the Cure! - and leverage that Voice to effectively persuade legislators.
You helped us pass $1 million in PA, now help us pass $10 million in Wisconsin.
Join us,
Matthew Rodreick, Executive Director
U2FP
P.S. Today's Bill being introduced in Wisconsin is a direct result of your engagement with U2FP's work. And our growing list of monthly donors is a huge factor in helping us to continue expanding our CAN efforts into new states, like Wisconsin. We wouldn't be here without you - and your support is making a difference! Help us reach our goal of adding 35 new monthly donors - we're now only 19 donors away! Consider joining us as a monthly donor so that we can Fuel the Journey towards curative interventions for paralysis.
