Newsletter Archive

Holiday Fundraiser

Our Holiday Fundraiser kicked off on November 1, and even though it took a couple of weeks for the ball to start rolling, support and social media shares from friends and family have positioned it to be better than expected!

For the fundraiser, we've partnered with Levine Children's Hospital in Charlotte, NC and UNC Medical Center in Chapel Hill to provide support to patients and their families that will be receiving blood disease or disorder-related treatment during the holiday. It also provides us with an opportunity to meet with patients, let them know about our organization, and to provide them with information regarding our various programs. We're excited to think that not only will we be able to offer support over the holiday, but to hopeful provide them with some financial assistance in the new year. 

Thus far, we've either purchased or received 266 items to be passed along to patients and their families. Our in-kind donation suppliers have been awesome! We've received donations from the Carolina Hurricanes, Durham Bulls, Target, Walmart, and Andia's Ice Cream (best ice around). We're waiting on a few other organizations, but we're hopeful they will provide us with something to be passed along!

If you're interested in contributing to our fundraiser, there's a few ways you can do it.

1. Click "DONATE" at the top of our website.

2. Send a check to Better Blood Project, 5836 Fayetteville Road, Suite 202, Durham, NC 27713

3. Venmo us https://www.venmo.com/u/betterbloodproject

4. Go to our instagram page https://www.instagram.com/betterbloodproject/

If you'd like to make a donation, but have questions before you're able to do so, please don't hesitate to email daniel@betterbloodproject.org. Additionally, our EIN is 93-1719776. As a registered nonprofit organization, all donations are tax deductible.

2024 Projects

We've got some big things planned for 2024! 

• We're excited to finally be in the position to open our financial assistance programs. We'll be able to help individuals and families with the incredibly high costs of care, treatment, and everything that comes with a chronic blood disease or disorder. 

• We're teaming up with doctors and clinicians at UNC Medical Center in Chapel Hill to contribute to the further development of the Sickle-Cell Disease - Adolescent and Young Adult (SCD-AYA) Transition Program. 

• We'll be partnering with doctors and clinicians with East Carolina University Pediatric Hematology/Oncology to determine how we can contribute to all the wonderful things that are being done there. 

• We're hoping to further expand our reach out of our home state of North Carolina with the ultimate goal of becoming a nationally known and recognized hematological organization.

Partnerships

Since our inception, we never viewed a partner as a person, organization, or institution that simply funds our mission. To us, a partner is any one of these entities that has a desire and willingness to tie their name to ours while collaborating with us as we work together to accomplish a common goal.

We had no idea six months ago that the Better Blood Project would not only receive support and an eagerness to collaborate from total strangers, but that we would actually position ourselves to support and serve children, individuals, and families as they battle their rare and/or chronic hematological disease or disorder. 

Our partnerships and the support we've received has come in many forms and from a variety of individuals, organizations, and institutions. They have facilitated an ability to accomplish what we set out to do while providing us access to the necessary personnel to assist those in need. We would not be able to achieve what we're positioned to do without the support and an unwavering belief from people that not only have confidence in our organization, but see that what we've created has the potential to impact countless lives.

We began our mission to serve an underserved population battling chronic and rare blood diseases or disorders. Our collaborative relationships started with the University of North Carolina (UNC) at Chapel Hill Blood Research Center, and has since blossomed to work with clinicians at the UNC Medical Center, Duke University Children's Hematology Clinic, and Levine Children's Hospital in Charlotte, North Carolina. We are also currently working to formalize our partnership with East Carolina University Pediatric Hematology/Oncology.

As we gain traction, our goal is to explore partnerships with doctors, clinicians, and supporting staff throughout North Carolina, New York, and eventually across the United States. We're excited about the potential of becoming a commonly referred to organization throughout the hematological community. 

If personal experience, relationships, or any other reason has led you to know someone within a hematological department of a hospital, medical center, or treatment facility, please let us know! We'd love to reach out to them to see how we can collaborate to help each other.

What We've Learned

Starting a nonprofit, and the last six months have been filled with ups, downs, and just about everything in between. We learned soon after receiving our state and federal confirmation paperwork that the easiest part about forming a nonprofit organization was in fact, the paperwork. 

When the Better Blood Project was first created, we knew we wanted to directly help children, young adults, individuals, and families. We also knew that the support networks for patients with chronic, rare, and non-cancerous blood diseases or disorders are relatively non-existent, but even we were surprised by the lack of attention and support that individuals with these conditions receive and have access to.

We've thought all along that individuals with these types of blood diseases and disorders are largely forgotten about. I'm sure anyone with one of these conditions that has received treatment in a hematology-oncology (hem-onc) or hematology facility has heard, "It's not cancer," which is indeed, a great thing to hear. However, I know when I heard it for the first time I thought, "You're right, it isn't cancer, but it's pretty darn close."

Through personal and professional experience we have found that these individuals are often treated like a cancer patient - they receive treatment in the hem-onc unit, an oncologist is part of their medical team, and many of the available treatments are the exact same as someone with cancer. Fortunately, these patients don't have cancer, but unfortunately they often don't have access to uniquely specialized care or treatment, and/or a plethora of financial assistance programs that are designed to assist and support patients with cancer. 

It's a beautifully terrible situation to be in.

Patients with these chronic, life-long diseases or disorders don't have a light at the end of the tunnel, they can't say "I beat...", or consider themselves a survivor. They have to face each day with their condition, hope it doesn't get worse, and pray that one day a cure will be developed. Certainly these diseases and disorders don't impact the same numbers of people when compared to the countless patients battling various forms of cancer, but we don't think that means they should receive any less focus, care, and support. 

These individuals, their conditions, and the necessity for change was the reason the Better Blood Project was created. We're here to directly impact lives, catalyze outcomes, and contribute to the development of better medicines, treatments, and cures.

Holiday Fundraiser

This newsletter (our first!!), aligned perfectly with our Holiday Fundraising Campaign. We are excited to be collaborating with Levine Children's Hospital in Charlotte and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Medical Center to provide holiday related support to patients. 

The children, individuals and families we plan to support may be stuck in one of these facilities receiving long term treatment during the holiday, and our goal is to provide them with assistance during one of the most heartwarming times of the year. 

To put it simply, we want to make sure that every child, person, and/or family can experience whichever holiday they celebrate, the way it should be celebrated - with happiness and laughter, smiles, good food, gifts, and loved ones by your side. We want to do what we can to ensure an ability to appropriately celebrate while hopefully helping them forget that they're spending it in a hospital. We have been presented with this wonderful opportunity and we want to pass it along to you as a way to directly give back.

Along with contributions to these individuals, we will visit each facility, meet with every person and family, and make sure that no one spends the entirety of the holiday alone. We're hopeful that support we receive, along with in-kind donations from organizations such as the Carolina Hurricanes, Charlotte Hornets, Durham Bulls, Wegmans, Fresh Market, Harris Teeter, Target, and Walmart will ensure that not one patient or family in need during this holiday season.

If you have any desire, and a willingness to collaborate with us on our first ever Holiday Fundraising Campaign, we welcome and greatly appreciate your support. However, if you've already made a contribution to our cause, or already have a charity or nonprofit organization close to your heart, we're asking instead of a donation, if you could please pass along our email and newsletter to a friend, family member, work colleague, or make a post on your preferred social media platform. We're hopeful that simple sharing will not only maximize our ability to provide our intended support and service, but will help raise awareness to our organization, mission, and this campaign.  

We have three ways to accept support.

1. Click "DONATE" at the top of our website.

2. Send a check to Better Blood Project, 5836 Fayetteville Road, Suite 202, Durham, NC 27713

3. Venmo us https://www.venmo.com/u/betterbloodproject

If you'd like to make a donation, but have questions before you're able to do so, please don't hesitate to email daniel@betterbloodproject.org. Additionally, our EIN is 93-1719776. As a registered nonprofit organization, all donations are tax deductible.

Person Spotlight

Juliet Galton, LCSW

As part of every newsletter, we will highlight someone that has not only helped countless individuals throughout their journey, but has inspired us personally and professionally to simply be a better human. For our inaugural newsletter, we've chosen to highlight Juliet Galton.

My name is Juliet Galton and I’ve been a social worker at Levine Children’s Hospital for 10 years exactly this year! It has been an incredible experience and one that I cherish each and every day because of the amazing connections I make with the families I get to serve. I work with patients that have Leukemia and Lymphoma diagnoses by helping to understand their needs, how treatment will or has impacted them, and connecting them to resources to help with emotional, physical, and financial supports. 

I always knew that I wanted to work with children and adolescents in some shape or form. I started my career working at the Public Mental Health Center within Children, Adolescent & Family Services, where I met with the children either in the clinic or at their school. I then started to move towards the medical side of things, by spending a few years at an inpatient psychiatric hospital and then later was the ED Social worker for a small local hospital. While I enjoyed both of those settings, I found my true love and passion by joining my interest in medical advancements with my love of children at the Pediatric Cancer and Blood Disorders at Atrium. It was there that I could really form relationships with my patients as many of the treatment protocols require them to be in active care for several years. It was seeing patients get better and helping make sure they had everything they needed to focus on that, and holding the hands of families that weren’t always as fortunate when I realized this was my calling and where I was meant to be. It is an honor to serve and get to work with these brave amazing families!