Little Tick Big Problem May is Lyme disease awareness month. This year we want you to paint your community Lyme green. It is time to yank the Lyme disease skeleton out the IDSA's closet and expose it for everyone to see.
As many of you know my brother and I have embarked on a project to create a Public Service Announcement for Lyme disease that will be ready to air this May. Our intended project is much bigger than just that single PSA commercial.
To make this project truly huge and effective, we need your help. Yes we need donations for the production of the PSA, but there is more. Right now the biggest thing you can do to help is to spread the word. Get on all your social networks and tell everyone! .
Public Service Announcement (Commercial) . WEBSITE- We will create a website to go along with the PSA.
This site will be a source of where to find information. There will be a page listing and linked to existing Lyme disease organizations. This will allow people to find the organization nearest to them. There will also be pages listing other resources related to Lyme; blogs, online support groups, books...
PRESS KIT- A press kit will be produced to go along with the PSA.
I have contacted a friend at a local television station near me to find out how we can best go about getting our PSA aired. She told me to make it go along with a current news story. That should be easy! May is the perfect time for the media to publish/air stories urging people to ``take care this tick season...''
Another friend of mine has written quite a few press kits in her time, she has volunteered to help me put ours together.
I knew my University friends and Journalism minor would pay off someday!
HOW YOU CAN HELP-
Tell everyone about this campaign and ask them to make a donation. Share links to the PSA information on all your social networks and at your local support groups. We will be depending on the Lyme community to bring the PSA and press kit to your local stations. Including letters from your community about the importance of spreading Lyme disease awareness in you area will help encourage the stations to air the Lyme PSA. We need you to tell them specifically why this PSA is important to your community right now (May). . Viral Campaign- . WEBSITE- We will create another website to collect all of your stories. These can be written and include a photo, or by telling your story on camera. We are encouraging as many of you as possible to go with the video option. On the first day of May we will all post the link to our stories on our personal facebook, myspace, blog, twitter, etc profiles. Ask everyone you know to read/watch your story and share it with everyone they know.
To make the campaign cohesive, we will be providing a general guideline for these posts. Stay tuned for that in the next few days.
We will also be running a viral campaign for the Public Service Announcement.
HOW YOU CAN HELP-
Obviously you can help by submitting your story. But, there is more you can to to make this part of the campaign a success. Offer to help other Lymies with their stories. If you have a video camera make yourself available to film someone else's story too. Ask at your local support groups if anyone would like to share their story. A few additional production companies have already contacted us offering to help with personal interviews. If you have a production company and you want to help please contact us at [email protected] Are you really good at uploading videos? We are looking for someone to help with the organization and support of this part of the project. We want all videos uploaded on youtube for easy sharing. When the PSA hits the internet help spread it like wildfire! . Visual Campaign- . GREEN RIBBONS- ``Ribbons Across America'' is a ribbon campaign that was started by S-L-A.M.org to help raise Lyme disease awareness and to serve as a tribute to those who have lost their battle to this disease.
This year lets do even more!
FLYERS- We will be providing Lyme disease awareness graphics for use on flyers for you to print out at home. We encourage you to pass them out all over your community this May.
POSTERS, BANNERS, STICKERS AND SHIRTS- We will also be organizing these for you to easily purchase online. All graphics are donated and the only cost to you will be the base charge from the company that produces the items. In our experience this is a cheaper option than personally having items like this printed anywhere locally.
HOW YOU CAN HELP-
#1 participate. Hang those ribbons and posters, pass out those flyers. Paint your town Lyme green this May! If you are an artist and would like to submit a Lyme awareness image to be used in this campaign, send us a message at- [email protected] Ask your local support groups to go in together on purchasing awareness items. The online companies give discounts for bulk orders. ADDITIONAL IDEAS OF WAYS TO HELP OUT-
Students, ask your teachers if you can do a presentation to your class this May about Lyme disease. Go traditional, have a bake sale to raise funds to donate to the project. Offer your services in exchange for a donation made to the PSA project. I have offered to paint a mural for my friend. Instead of paying me I asked her to donate to the project. If you think there is a missing part of this campaign that you could fill tell us! Send an email to [email protected]
Tincup
Honored Contributor (10K+ posts)
Member # 5829
posted
You are soooooooo busy with this project and I am soooooooo happy to see your passion and hard work being put to use for the good of all. Thank you!
I don't know if this will help with your efforts, but here is a Public Service Announcement (for radio) that was done by the LDA a while back.
The Lyme Disease Network is a non-profit organization funded by individual donations. If you would like to support the Network and the LymeNet system of Web services, please send your donations to:
The
Lyme Disease Network of New Jersey 907 Pebble Creek Court,
Pennington,
NJ08534USA http://www.lymenet.org/
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