by- Ashley van Tol and Eric Rutulante
From Ashley-
This year’s paint May Lyme Green awareness campaign has opened up a lot of doors for us. We have a lot of momentum and we plan to keep it moving.
The first opportunity we have that we would like to act on is interviewing celebrities that have or have had Lyme disease. We already have authors, actors and models who have said they would like to take part in our campaign. I actually had to stop contacting celebrities because so many were interested in helping out. I still have a long list of celebs left to contact. All we need is the funds to make it happen
Another door that opened was to possibly produce a short film about Lyme to submit to a film festival. This would be a story not a documentary.
Of course we also have a handful of other celebs including professional athletes, actors and models who are willing to do more PSAs for us.
In addition to the press kits we are currently sending to TV stations, we will be creating and sending out a slightly different kit with the PSAs to talk shows and other influential people. We predict more doors to open as a result.
Exciting isn’t it! We also have some non-celebrity oriented goals for the coming year. We want to create a brochure that will be made available for anyone to order and send out. The goal is to make this free of charge.
A general awareness kit available as a PDF download is in the works.
AND, a possible summer 2011 tour to cross the country spreading awareness in state and national parks. I can’t think of a more appropriate place to educate the public about Lyme
We also have ideas for fundraisers to help bring in the donations to make these projects possible. Nani, of Victorious Vixen and I are working on some craftivism ideas. We are hoping to get some help from our Vampire Diaries friends on this one. Stay tuned for more information about that.
We need some help to make these projects come to life. Funding is the #1 obstacle we face. We are going to continue to ask for donations, but we also want to attract corporate sponsors. To get sponsors we need to grow our brand.
The “brand” when it comes to our awareness projects is Lymenaide. That encompass the blogs, facebook pages, twitter and YouTube accounts of Lymenaide, Lymebites and Victorious Vixen. We need subscribers, page hits and comments to attract potential sponsors. You can help by visiting, subscribing and sharing these sites and pages with your friends and followers.
Enter Eric-
You’re probably thinking to yourself “but guys, I’ve already donated to the May campaign, now you want more money?”
To answer you, yes. We want you to help us to raise money. The great thing about the awareness we spread in the month of May is that now more and more people know about Lyme disease. It has been leading news stories across the county, it has been on the front page of newspapers… there are a lot more people today on June 1st that know about Lyme disease than there were on May 1st when we kicked off the campaign.
Thanks to so many generous donations throughout the month, we were able to put the gears in motion and because of that get the attention that we needed for more people to know about Lyme disease. As I’ve said, we are like a snowball that is just picking up speed and strength. So now we need to take what we did in the month of May and project it onto a much larger scale. We need people all across the country to think of ways to raise funds to help continue the awareness. We need people to join us in finding people and organizations to sponsor and donate to the cause.
But just as important, we need each of you to continue spreading awareness of this disease. The month of Lyme disease awareness may have ended, but Lyme disease season is in full force. So continue doing the things you did in May to tell people about Lyme disease.
Has your local television station or newspaper done anything on Lyme? If not then contact them and ask them to. You’ll be amazed at how eager they may be to hear your story. And if you can’t tell your story, there’s someone else where you are that will tell theirs. But you need to let the media know that this is important and you want them to cover it.
As you continue spreading the word about this disease, and more and more people who have been impacted by this disease get involved with the campaign and fundraising, then we can continue to ride the wave of momentum we picked up during the month of May.
The one thing all of us involved in Paint May Lyme Green know for sure is that this is one very creative group of people wanting to raise awareness. Now is the time to use that outstanding creativity to come up with fundraising ideas so we can move forward with all we have planned and help save the lives of thousands of people.
If you have any ideas or if you know of anyone you think we should contact about becoming a sponsor, please send an email to- ashvantol@lymenaide.com or erut10@gmail.com.