On November 29th, Giving Tuesday is coming to Canada! A compliment to Black Friday and Cyber Monday, Giving Tuesday is a day that stimulates the community instead of the economy by facilitating donation to thousands of charities across Canada.
There are many charities worth donating to on Giving Tuesday, and we always encourage helping your community by donating. If you are considering donating to the Save Your Skin Foundation, we thank you– and would like to fill you in a little bit on what we’re up to, and how your money would be used.
First and foremost, the money donated to the Save Your Skin Foundation goes to melanoma patients. The primary goal of SYSF is supporting families during the worst time of their lives; therefore we want the cancer patient and their family to be able to focus on the fight against melanoma, by alleviating the financial strain of cancer treatment. Whenever possible, we offer monetary assistance for transportation, accommodation, and food costs to melanoma patients travelling for trial treatments. Emotional support is equally a priority– Save Your Skin Founder Kathy Barnard is approachable for advice and support from someone who has been through the melanoma journey. Kathy Barnard’s knowledge of the treatment landscape and connections with Oncologists, Dermatologists, and other medical professionals is often helpful to patients who are unsure of how to navigate the medical system, such as finding treatment options and preparing for appointments. We also strive to make our websites Save Your Skin and I’m Living Proof hopeful, informative, and supportive, as the internet is often a discouraging place to look for those fighting melanoma.
The Save Your Skin Foundation represents the patient voice on the national and international level with its presence at conferences and meetings in Canada, the United States, and Europe. Nationally, Save Your Skin regularly meets with government stakeholders, pharmaceutical companies, and medical professionals to bridge the gap between these groups and the melanoma patient. Medical knowledge is further imbued to the patient via our educational YouTube video series, and our Webinars. These webinars feature a wide range of topics and guests, from medical professionals to melanoma survivors, and live recordings of past webinars are available on our website. Further, in 2017, Save Your Skin intends to develop an immuno-oncology network for medical professionals, advocacy groups, and the melanoma patient to further assist the patient in navigating immuno-oncological treatments, a recent and exciting development in the melanoma landscape.
Due to these incredible advances in medical technology and trial treatments in the past decade, we are pleased to report that melanoma survivorship is at an all-time high. From this new group of melanoma survivors, we are learning that the fight with melanoma doesn’t end at remission. Save Your Skin has taken several steps to be supportive of melanoma survivors, including the I’m Living Proof initiative, which allows melanoma survivors to tell their stories and connect with each other, and melanoma patients; we often include survivors in webinars and forums we are involved in hosting; and in 2017, we are intending to launch our Melanoma Survivorship Pilot Project, which will include national media campaigns, a survivorship e-book, a survivor survey and report, and a microsite. We also intend to host a survivorship meeting in the Spring of 2017, to ascertain how the needs of survivors are being met and what improvements could be made.
We’re looking forward to Giving Tuesday, and hope you will consider the Save Your Skin Foundation when you are selecting the charities to whom you will donate. If donating is financially a stretch, you can still participate by volunteering for Giving Tuesday, and tweeting with the hashtag #givingtuesday to spread the word! Thank you for reading, and happy giving!

Donate to Save Your Skin via Giving Tuesday here

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