Scleroderma Awarness Month 2006: The Results Continue to Come In and the Results Are Excellent

Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors declare the month of June "Scleroderma Awareness Month" at a Proclamation Ceremony and recognize Wescom Credit Union for its sponsorship of the Southern California Chapter's 4th Annual "Stepping Out to Cure Scleroderma" Walk.

Media surveys for our recently completed Awareness Month are still coming in and it appears this year’s effort was the most successful ever—or at least right up there at the top.

Thanks to the solid efforts of chapters and support groups across the nation, newspaper research reports show June’s media effort in this one area alone resulted in a total of 636 stories about the Foundation or its people. (This number will certainly increase because news clips are often not tallied for two to three weeks after they are actually published.)

To give you an idea of how many media mentions scleroderma receives in a typical month, May’s research showed 226 stories. The media effort in this area for 2005 was about 500 stories.

In addition there was a strong effort on the part of those who hosted walks to get local radio and television coverage. These reports often included interviews with local walk organizers and showed chapter or national phone numbers.

And, as the name indicates, the bottom line for Scleroderma Awareness Month is awareness. One small indicator here in the national office tells us that a great deal of awareness was raised.

For the month of June 2006 the National Office received and filled requests for a little more than 600 Scleroderma Information Packs (SIPs). This is about 250 more than we typically send out and roughly 200 more than last year’s awareness month.

A more complete accounting will be compiled for the next "Scleroderma Voice," which is due to hit the mail in early September.