Dear PHA Community Member:

Every year, spring marks the beginning of the pulmonary hypertension (PH) community’s annual fundraising events to support the Pulmonary Hypertension Association (PHA) and its mission – to extend and improve the lives of those affected by PH.  These community-based events mobilize volunteers, raise awareness about PH and provide critical philanthropic support that enables PHA to provide the services and programs that support the priority areas identified by the PH community as part of PHA’s 2017 strategic planning.  These priorities include advocating on behalf of the PH community, catalyzing research for a cure, empowering patients and caregivers (including children living with PH), and promoting quality patient care.

Last year, the PH community came out in force to fight this terrible disease and to raise the vitally important funds for PHA.  PHA is deeply grateful for the thousands of volunteers in 53 communities who hosted events that brought together more than 11,500 patients, caregivers, family members, friends, and sponsors and raised more than $1.4 million.  This support enabled PHA to help approximately 6,000 members of our community through our peer support programs and another 2.6 million through our comprehensive online resource, PHAssociation.org.  Our programs for health care professionals provided PH-related education to more than 3,000 physicians and non-physician clinicians and our advocacy efforts were strengthened by members of our community sending more than 2,000 messages to their members of Congress.  In addition, PHA funded more than $730,000 in new and existing PH-related research grants.

March marks the beginning of our fundraising event season and we are excited by the volunteer interest, plans and momentum already shown by this year’s event organizers.  Together, our hope is that we will build upon last year’s success and have even more participants help raise awareness about PH and raise the funds necessary to serve even more members of the community in 2018.

If you’re among the nearly 12,000 volunteers who host and attend the dozens of PHA staff- and community-hosted fundraising events around the country, thank you. If you want to join these enthusiastic PH community volunteers, here are some easy ways for you to get involved and support PHA and other members of your PH community:

O2 breathe Events:

This year, we’re hosting 20 national PHA O2 breathe events. These fundraisers need local sponsors, team captains, strong partnerships with health care organizations and lots of participants. I invite you to go to www.O2breathe.org to see when and where events will take place and let us know how you’d like to get involved.

PHA Grassroots Events

In addition to the PHA O2 breathe events, volunteers will host more than 30 special fundraising events in their local communities. Please check PHA’s events calendar to learn more about these events. If you plan to host a local PHA fundraiser and want to learn how to add it to the calendar, please contact us at Events@PHAssociation.org.

I look forward to participating in as many events as possible throughout the country and I hope to meet you along the way. I would also like to thank our generous O2 breathe event sponsors, Actelion Pharmaceuticals, Gilead Sciences, United Therapeutics, Bayer Healthcare and CVS Specialty and our Grassroots Events Across America Fund sponsor, Actelion Pharmaceuticals.

While you’re making plans for the year, please don’t forget that we are also hosting our 2018 PHA International PH Conference and Scientific Sessions from June 29 to July 1.  If you haven’t already made plans to be in Orlando, Florida, for the Conference, I invite you to do so.

Thank you for all you do to bring us closer to our vision of a world without PH – empowered by hope. Please know I’m always open to hearing your thoughts and ideas at BradWongPHA@PHAssociation.org.