September is ALWAYS the busiest month here at the ICN because we also manage the international IC Awareness Month campaign. Every day, new facts and/or articles were released to educate others about life with IC. Our press release was distributed to hundreds of news outlets. Several international organizations joined in the cause!
Patients, medical care providers and pharmaceutical companies embraced the campaign with tweets (#icawarenessmonth), social networking postings and more than 100 entries for our art contests. The contest which created the biggest buzz was for Doctor and Physical Therapist of the Year. We’re still going through hundreds of entries to select the winners which we’ll announce later this fall.
Another highlight was the 30 day challenge issued by the Defeat IC campaign. Patients were given something new to do each day to spread the word and many participated! Those who completed all of them received a gift from the company. Thank you Imprimis Pharmaceuticals for believing in the IC patient community and participating in this years campaign.
Thanks to our amazing team of volunteers led by Christy Keyes and Michelle Crandall for compiling our poster and meme entries. To Jill Van Royen for tirelessly advocating for children with IC. She has a project that we’ll be sharing later this year. To Maggie Damken & Hope Engel for contributing articles for the campaign! And to the 30 patients who were on our planning committee this year.
A Giant Thank You to Dr. Matt Clark and the IC Vitamin Source for sponsoring this months campaign and paying for the Kindle Fire’s given to our contest winners.
Another Giant Thank You To Hugga Heating Pads for donating our second place prizes for the Meme and Poster Contests! Check out their great pads at: http://hugga-heating-pads.myshopify.com