Our Letter to the Brandywine Health Foundation

 

Here's a photo of our letter to the Brandywine Health Foundation. 

It went out in this afternoon's mail.

Here's the actual text, between the line of asterisks:

*********************************  

Ms. Frances M. Sheehan

President and CEO

Brandywine Health Foundation

50 S. First Ave.

Coatesville, PA 19320

December 30, 2013

Dear Ms. Sheehan:

Please allow me to introduce myself. My name is Don Harting and I live in Downingtown. I represent Brandywine Medical Writers (BMW), a small, informal organization now forming with the express purpose of helping the Brandywine Health Foundation (BHF) achieve its admirable goal of improving the health and well-being of people who live and work in the greater Coatesville area.  BMW would like to offer professional medical writing services to BHF on a pro bono basis during 2014.

BMW members belong to the Delaware Valley chapter of the American Medical Writers Association and live or work in Chester County. We are familiar with the special problems facing many residents of Coatesville, and we have a strong desire to help the underserved. We are also trained and experienced mid-career professionals with knowledge, skills, abilities, and interests in the following areas:

·       Biochemistry

·       Microbiology

·       Public health

·       Medical coding and transcription

·       Laboratory science

·       Nutrition

·       Oncology education

·       Cancer survivorship

·       Continuing education

·       Helping children of divorced parents

·       Newsletter article writing and editing

·       Blogging, tweeting, and social media

·       Content strategy and development

·       Publication planning

·       Copyediting and proofreading

·       Grant writing and editing

We think the projects BHF undertakes to foster community partnerships, build capacity, and make grants to promote health equity and healthy youth are worthy of support. The Festive 5K Run to benefit the Coatesville Youth Initiative is just one example. Please let us know if there is any way we can support you. We are available to discuss this offer by telephone, in person, via email, or whichever manner best meets your needs.

Sincerely yours,

Donald Harting, MA, ELS, CCMEP

Group Representative

(610) 363-5258

donharting@verizon.net

*********************************

Now we just need to wait and be patient until someone responds.

Happy New Year!

Draft Text of Our Letter to BHF

Brandywine Medical Writers

c/o Harting Communications

301 Brookwood Drive 

Downingtown PA 19335

 

 

 

Ms. Frances M. Sheehan

President and CEO

Brandywine Health Foundation

50 S. First Ave.

Coatesville, PA 19320

December 30, 2013

Dear Ms. Sheehan:

Brandywine Medical Writers (BMW) is a small, informal organization now forming with the express purpose of helping the Brandywine Health Foundation (BHF) achieve its admirable goal of improving the health and well-being of people who live and work in the greater Coatesville area.  BMW would like to offer professional medical writing services to BHF on a volunteer project basis during 2014.

All BMW members live or work in Chester County, are familiar with the special problems facing many residents of Coatesville, and have a strong desire to help the underserved. We are also trained and experienced mid-career professionals with knowledge, skills, abilities, and interests in the following areas: 

·       Biochemistry

·       Microbiology

·       Public health

·       Medical coding and transcription

·       Laboratory science

·       Nutrition

·       Oncology education

·       Cancer survivorship 

·       Continuing education

·       Helping children of divorced parents

·       Newsletter article writing and editing

·       Blogging, tweeting, and social media

·       Content strategy and development

·       Publication planning

·       Copyediting and proofreading

·       Grant writing and editing

We think the projects BHF undertakes to foster community partnerships, build capacity, and make grants to promote health equity and healthy youth are worthy of support. The Festive 5k to benefit the Coatesville Youth Initiative is just one example. Please let us know if there is any way we can support you. We are available to discuss this offer by telephone, in person, via email, or whichever manner best meets your needs.

Sincerely yours,

Donald Harting, MA, ELS, CCMEP

Group Representative

(610) 363-5258

donharting@verizon.net

Our Letter to the Brandywine Health Foundation

Hi Everyone:

I'd like to compose this letter during the week between Christmas and the New Year. Thank you to those who have given me their skills/interests information. If you have not, please try to comment by Monday, December 23.

Also, if you can sign up to receive a notification when this blog is updated, that would be helpful. Email notification is perhaps easiest, but you can also use RSS (Atom), if you use a blog reader.

Thank you!

P.S. If you want to contact me directly, you may use email at donharting (at) verizon (dot) net.

Update on Helping the Poor in Coatesville

Hi Everyone:

(That means Maria, Theresa, Michelle, Martha, Yi, Bonnie, and anyone else who visits this blog.)

Maria Ligos and I met last night at the Pen and Pencil Club in Philadelphia to talk about a possible service project in Coatesville. It was a pleasure to finally meet Maria in person. We were joined by Yi _____, whose last name escapes me, a scientist and medical writer doing preclinical research in mice. We were also joined briefly by Joanne Rosenberg, our dedicated chapter president.

As I mentioned in my Dec. 17 post to the AMWA-DVC subgroup on LinkedIn, Joanne told us that the chapter won't be able to support us in any formal fashion, since an outreach project like this doesn't fall within the chapter mission. But she said it sounds like a good idea, and encouraged us to go ahead.

As a first step, I'd like to suggest that we send a letter to Ms. Frances Sheehan, president and CEO of the Brandywine Health Foundation (BHF).

The BHF (net assets of $27 million) sponsored the festive (and fun!) 5K run earlier this month.Here's a photo taken in 2012:

The BHF's primary mission is improving health in the Coatesville area by funding safety net agencies that many residents depend on to stay healthy. Most of its annual revenue comes from earnings on investments, but a substantial sum (approx. $500,000) comes from grants. 


The BHF uses this money to support a wide variety of local health-related agencies operating in Coatesville. For example, in 2013 BHF granted $340,000 to ChesPenn Health Services, $245,000 to Chester County Community Dental Center, $50,000 to Child Guidance Resource Centers, plus many other grants too numerous to mention. (These figures come from the 2013 annual report.)

Essentially, we would send a letter to Ms. Sheehan saying this:

"We are a group of local medical writers with professional skills in a number of areas, including public health, laboratory science, nutrition, and _________ (you would help me fill in the blank). We think what you are doing at BHF is a wonderful thing and we would like to volunteer to help you. One particular area where we may be able to help is in writing and editing grant applications. Please let us know if someone at the BHF would be willing to discuss this idea further, either in person or over the telephone."

Then we would wait to see what happens.

Hopefully, if we keep things simple, we'll be able to get this letter in the mail (or email) before the end of the year.

What I need from you is:

* A sense of whether you are on board with this
* If you are, some information about your skills, abilities, and interests that I can mention in the letter.
* If we need to give ourselves a name (since we are not affiliated with AMWA-DVC) is it OK if we call ourselves the Brandywine Medical Writing Group?

For example, Maria has a particular interest in nutrition and providing fresh produce. I have skills/interests in the area of providing services to cancer survivors, and to bereaved children (death or divorce in the family).

Please weigh in on these topics using the comments feature on this blog. I have tried to make commenting as easy as possible, but if you get annoying messages, please tell me and I will try to remove them.

You can also sign up to receive notifications when this blog is updated, either via RSS (atom) or via email.

Thanks for your interest in helping improve public health in Coatesville, and I hope to hear from you soon!

Don


  P.S. Terry was having trouble commenting, so I removed the moderation feature. Now all comments will be posted directly to the blog, you won't have to wait for me to approve them. (If we get too much spam I will change this.)