Community Outreach Team

When: Wednesdays 1pm – 2pm ET

Co-Chairs: Juliet Taylor (lost her husband to ALS), Tim Abeska (lost his wife to ALS)

Mission Statement: To engage, educate and empower ourselves and others for the purpose of creating better care, treatments and cures for ALS.

What do we do:

Engage, educate and create advocates.
Assist other I AM ALS volunteer teams in community engagement as it relates to their particular initiatives.

Goals:

Raise awareness of ALS and the movement within the ALS community and the general population.

Accomplishments:

Created documents, blog posts and resources to help patients, caregivers, and loved ones impacted by ALS — including but not limited to:
Built local and regional relationships with other ALS organizations
Raised awareness of ALS Signal: The Clinical Research Dashboard
Worked across the ALS community and with various contacts in MLB to create an annual Lou Gehrig Day for MLB to raise awareness for ALS
Hosted conversations on topics such as Beauty in Disability with Mayuri Saxena and Kate Fagan’s All the Colors Came Out
Hosted 8 panels that educated people outside of the ALS community about what it’s like to live with or be impacted by ALS
Team member Lorri Carey continues producing her amazing podcast I’m Dying to Tell You
Raised awareness of ALS through social media campaigns using #ALSisEverywhere
Worked alongside of other ALS non-profits to amplify resources and collaborate
Participated in Wreaths Across America at Arlington Cemetery
Supported and encouraged women diagnosed with ALS under the age of 35 to share their stories, which led to the creation of Her ALS Story

What we are working on now:

Hosting webinars and panel discussions to spread ALS awareness in different communities
Helping to organize Lou Gehrig Day events throughout the country
Creating new social media campaigns that promote existing resources and increase the size and impact of the ALS movement