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This past Monday I attended my first Greater Pitman Chamber of Commerce Meeting. Deanna loved attending them when she was more local, and now that I am the most local person, I have taken up that role and am embracing the overlap between my existing Pitman community and representing the histio community. 

The Greater Pitman Chamber of Commerce meets monthly. In the event you aren’t familiar with the role of a Chamber of Commerce, they are made up of businesses that work together to promote and support the economic interests of the community. They often offer networking opportunities, advocate for business-friendly policies, and provide resources to help businesses grow. We are involved in our local chamber to raise awareness of our organization and histiocytic disorders seeing as we have been local to Pitman for nearly 40 years!  

In this month’s meeting, we heard from many officials like the Police Sargent and a Town Councilperson, for their reports on safety and budget respectively.  

Then, we talked about several upcoming events that we could take part in as a non-profit and hopefully gain awareness for histiocytic disorders. One upcoming event is happening in the spring, and several others happening this coming summer.  

We learned about updates to the town’s website, and how we can share more about the Histiocytosis Association on their page for listing local businesses. We also learned of openings in our town magazine to place ads. 

I shared that the Association is collecting soft plastics in town (until we reach 1000 lbs.) and where to drop off and how to contact us directly to pick up. This past fall, we signed up to be the local Trex soft plastics pickup person for our community. The Nextrex Recycling Challenge Program is a program where local non-profits and civic organizations collect 1000lbs or more of soft plastics (films, grocery bags, bread bags, etc.) during one 12-month period and if they have collected enough by the end, they get a bench made from recycled plastics. More than that, it is a great service to our community, as we usually only have one organization doing it at a time because of how small our town is. If you’re interested in doing it for your town, you can sign up here. 

Someone even asked about our founder Jeff Toughill and how he’s doing. It was so exciting to hear someone still asking after him, 5 years after he retired from leading the Association. 

Tips for reaching your community 

If you are interested in leaning on your local community and/or chamber of commerce to raise awareness about histiocytosis, you can reach out and learn more about upcoming events and opportunities.   

In another great piece of local awareness news, we have secured a season of advertising on the fence of Pitman’s Little League Field. It’s a great way for us to advertise locally, and depending on your local Little League, not too hard if you want to try something similar!  

Contact your local little league and see if they have any space on their fence for a free or low-cost advertisement.  

If anyone wants to do a small histio awareness project at a baseball game, you can even arrange to get advertisement or sponsorship of the little league field before or after doing a fundraising event at a little league game!  

Especially in the case of children with histiocytosis, youth sports are a meaningful way to share what histio is and how far we need to go to get treatments for specific disorders and mutations.  

You can reach out to your own local chamber of commerce to see what upcoming events they have, and if you can get a table for sharing histio awareness there. Especially in September, Histiocytosis Awareness Month. You can do something simple like print out brochures and fact sheets to share, or something like a bake sale for a small fundraiser.  
 
For more information on small fundraisers you can do this spring and summer, check out our Summer FUNdraising page. 

And hey, if you live in South Jersey or the larger Delaware Valley, reach out to me if you have an opening to speak at a local event or chamber of commerce meeting, and I may even be able to come out and speak on behalf of the Histiocytosis Association. You can contact me by email – peteryanefski@histio.org – or by phone at 856-589-6606 and ask for Peter.