We and the SCI/TBI community in Minnesota need your help. Minnesota's Governor, Tim Walz, has introduced a preliminary budget that defunds the $6M Minnesota SCI/TBI Research Grant Program. It is one of many cuts he's proposed to account for other deficits in the state budget.
U2FP has been busy this past week organizing our communities and alerting our research and clinical partners to make the case for preserving this program. And we need your help!
Please call Senator Tomassoni, Rep. Connie Bernardy and Governor Tim Walz asking them to keep this critical program in place.
Governor Tim Waltz
- Phone: 651-201-3400
- Email : https://mn.gov/governor/contact/
Rep. Connie Bernardy
- Phone: 651-296-5510
- E-mail: rep.connie.bernardy@house.mn
Senator Tomassoni
- Phone: 651-296-8017
- Email : https://www.senate.mn/members/email-form/1064
When calling or emailing, make sure to address some of these talking points:
- Briefly share who you are and why you're calling or writing.
- Remind them that this work supports undergrad, graduate, medical and postdoctoral students entering the SCI field of study
- Ask them to please not defund this critical program because it is working exactly as it was designed: accelerating scientific research to clinical treatments.
- Minnesota has gained national prominence in this area of research as result of this program and become a model for similar funding programs in Pennsylvania and Ohio.
Lastly, you can call from anywhere within or outside the United States.
We need voices from every area of the SCI Landscape: SCI community members, researchers, clinicians, advocates, and industry representatives.
So please call or send a message, whichever is easiest for you to do. Then share this message widely, urging your friends and colleagues to call or write.
