Rick Posted December 13, 2003 Posted December 13, 2003 Dear __________________- I am writing to you about a group of people who are so extraordinary that letters are being written about us all over the country! Our group went from 9 members in January 2003, to 770 members and growing! These people are spread all over the globe and are connected by one website’s message board. This website was created and is run on sheer dedication, no funding, and flourishing on a wing and a prayer and a whole lot of love! We receive over a million visits a weeks WITHOUT a single advertisement of any sort! We haven’t needed to advertise, for our members who come have no where else to go. Desperate, lost, and afraid are how our members come to us. Empowered, educated, supported and loved, is how they become after reading just a few postings! The simple message of our group is that no one is alone, there are options, and there is hope, even for people diagnosed with cancer. There are several groups out there in the “live” world and on the internet for people with different types of cancer. But groups for people diagnosed with Lung Cancer are virtually non-existent. With your diagnosis, you the patient are expected to slink away and die…We want to change that fact, and we want to change the stereotype and the stigma that Lung Cancer is only a smoker’s disease. IT IS NOT. We invite you to log on ( Visit http://www.lchelp.com) and see what a wonderful support group this is. We rejoice together and we cry together. We celebrate a remission and we mourn a death. We are so close that we phone each other, lift each other up when we fall or get discouraged, we conduct live chat, organize boycotts (like our boycott of Revlon, when they told us Lung Cancer wasn’t a “women’s issue”) and organize letter writing campaigns to our members of congress and to the local and national media. ALL OF THIS- AND NONE OF US HAVE EVER “MET”! You can’t deny the statistics that 80% of anyone diagnosed with lung cancer will die. You can’t deny the fact that more people are diagnosed with lung cancer than breast, colon and prostate COMBINED. You can’t deny the fact that because of the public stigma that smoker’s “reap what they sow”, there will never be funding, research and successful treatments for victims of lung cancer. You can’t deny our faces when you see twenty and thirty-year-olds who are battling this disease. You can’t deny that over HALF of folks diagnosed with lung cancer QUIT smoking long before their diagnosis. Come see our faces and learn our stories. JAY is 20 years old and in 4th stage Lung Cancer. BECKY is in her thirties and NEVER SMOKED in her life. We just lost BART-Z on December 9, 2003 and he was 35 years old. We have so many members who quit smoking 5 + years before their diagnosis and then those who smoked until diagnosis- well, they don’t DESERVE to die either. What if it was your spouse, brother, sister, mother, father, or child with this disease? Look at the governmental action taken against products containing Ephedrine- there were just a handful of deaths and the public demanded action and regulation. Yet 400,000 people die of smoking related disease every year, and cigarettes are still sold on every counter and displayed in every window and our states tobacco settlement monies are squandered without even having built ONE Lung Cancer research and support center. The public ignores the dangers of smoking, has no idea that people who don’t smoke get this disease too, and all the while Lung Cancer remains invisible, claiming 180,000 lives thanks to this stigma. Like breast cancer and AIDS activists, those of us who are survivors and those family members who have lost loved ones are standing up and demanding that this disease get noticed for what it really is, a monster, a killer that does not discriminate. Without early detection testing, you could be next. Please read about my own story and what brought me here to Lung Cancer Survivors for Change. ADD YOU STORY HERE!!! Quote
ginnyde Posted December 13, 2003 Posted December 13, 2003 Hey Rickey, Great letter, already copied and pasted to Word. Thank you. Check paragraph 5 - is 'that breast' should be 'than breast'. Ginny Quote
Rick Posted December 13, 2003 Author Posted December 13, 2003 It's been corrected. I had Katie do it since she wrote the letter. Thanks! Quote
Maria Posted December 30, 2003 Posted December 30, 2003 I don't mean to sound unsupportive of a letter-writing campaign - because I am all for it. However, after reading the sample letter, it is not clear to me what you are asking for from those that you want to send the letters to? financial support? awareness? etc? I would recommend being more direct with what the group's goal is and why you are contacting them. Just a suggestion/crtique -take it, or leave it. Quote
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