posted
So, I'm just sharing what our Lyme Disease Awareness Group is doing in the month of May to spread awareness, maybe to spark some interest in others if they have the energy...
There are six of us together who plan all of this and we are in Northern Wisconsin if anybody else ever wants to join us just let me know...
So, In May, we're having two local elementary schools and the senior center do a poster making contest on May 11th. We have a local printer who is donating 11x17 posters that say in black type... A TICK CHECK A DAY...HELPS KEEP LYME AWAY! with lots of white space around it and then the LDA website contact info on the bottom for people who want more information.
We have the local TV station doing a spot on the 9th to let people know it's happening, and then they'll be there on the 11th as well to tape the story and run it on the 11th and 12th on the local news broadcasts.
We got local businesses to donate three prizes, one for each location for best poster, and the people who do the posters get to vote for the best, obviously not voting for their own...and the winner each gets to be on the news and have their poster at the Doctor's office in town.
Then the rest will be at local businesses around town all summer as tourists come they'll see them and be a little more aware at least!
So that's one thing we're doing...then, every May we have the Lyme Disease Awareness green ribbon magnets made up, costs about two hundred dollars, but we use money from our donations from our talks on lyme to fund it, and we go to the parking lot at the hospital where the doctors and surgeons park and put one on each of their cars.
We know that most of them take them off, but it's our way of getting in their face and making them think of us at least once a year. We do the same at the Marshfield Clinic doctor's parking lot. Nobody knows it's us, but last year one of the doctors wrote an "anonymous" letter to the editor in our little paper and it was funny how they thought we were defacing their property. All they had to do was take it off....and they're doctors! Writing that letter to the editor acctually gave us more publicity!
FInally, we have a reporter at our local paper who has kind of been following my story the last four years since I was diagnosed, been sick for seven, but anyway, he's doing another full spread story this year on prevention, awareness and action. Really honing in on KNOWLEDGE is the key to conquering this disease, and the fact that it is so new, doctors don't know enough about it, so we have to be our own advocates.
The focus isn't knocking down the doctors, and we've made that perfectly clear, however it is about if you don't trust what your doctor is tellig you, find a new one! Or contact us and we help people find a lyme literate doctor.
Finally, the last thing we do is we have a printer, same one as for the posters, great guy who donates all of the recycled paper, soy ink and his time, who prints off a flyer for us that we send home with all of the kids in the schools, put in all the bulletins at the churches and put 100 on the counter of every hotel/motel that will have them. It shows the ticks, talks about how to remove them, and the signs and symptoms of lyme, how it is the great imitator, and how abx are a better choice than just "waiting to see" because of what can happen...and then we share a brief synopsis of my story and finally, have the LDA website for more info. Why redo what has already been done so well.
We also often lead people to this website if they think they have lyme, because all of the newbie links are so good, and it's so good to be able to ask questions about your own treatment.
So, that's what we're doing this year, we couldn't afford to show the movie Under Our Skin again this year, but the last two years we showed it every day for the month of May and a lot of people have seen it. I lend out my copy to people all the time if they haven't seen it and want to, so we're still showing it, just not in the large forum I'd like to again. Maybe we'll have the funds next year. We can only do what we can afford.
However, those magnets, I see them around town on cars, so whether some doctors keep them on or whether they pass them on or whether they throw them away and others fish them out, I don't know, but I see at least one every time I go to town, and we live in a little town. Actual residents about 20,000 but about 250,000 in the summer because of tourists.
Northern Wisconsin is beautiful! Come visit anytime! But do a tick check a day!
So, get the word out, copy something that we're doing if you want, or contact me by PM if you want more info on anything, but it's not that much work to make a difference, and this is our fourth year of doing things in May and people are starting to become more lyme literate!
I have moms on the soccer field come up to me and say, hey, you're that lyme girl right? Thanks to you, we knew my son had lyme and got him to the doctor right away, or we told my friend....you get the picture.
Whatever you do, don't remain silent! That's what's killing people! Let people know you're not a doctor, and then share your story and give advice from your perspective and they'll take it and do with it what they see fit. But if we don't say anything, we're killing people and that's not right!
Shout it from the Mountain Tops! Jesus is Lord! In His care and love to all of you, Jenn Kane I may have Lyme but it doesn't have me!
-------------------- When given lyme make lymeade! A tick check a day keeps lyme away! [email protected] Raising awareness by creating as many lymebassadors as possible! Posts: 158 | From Northern Wisconsin | Registered: Oct 2005
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Tincup
Honored Contributor (10K+ posts)
Member # 5829
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HOLY COW! These projects are really great! BRAVO!!!
I LOVE the poster idea... and you sneaky thing you getting those magnets stuck there on those cars! HA!
I also love the contest idea too. Wish more would do it... and wish I had time and energy to do it.
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