Closing Gaps, Improving Outcomes: Building Community Together
Happy New Year!
2024 was quite a year for SFA and we are looking forward to 2025 and celebrating the
organization’s 25th year anniversary. In 2024, in addition to funding impactful research, we launched programs to increase our support and engagement with the sarcoma community: We partnered with the Association for Community Care Centers (ACCC) to provide tools and information for community oncologists. We launched a new website to increase resources for the community, and in late 2024 we launched the <em>Sarcoma Stories</em> podcast.
To date, we have released three podcast episodes and have recorded several more. Each story is unique, and we never know where the discussion will lead. But they are not just “stories”. We launched this podcast to highlight the voices of the people affected by sarcoma: to better understand the challenges they face and the things that matter most to them. We also launched this podcast to help people in our community connect, share resources, or simply find someone who understands their experience. I admit, I was not sure what to expect when we decided to launch this initiative. But this podcast has turned into so much more than I imagined.
We listen to and share stories from the sarcoma community on many different platforms. Because of this, there is so much I thought I knew about the challenges, obstacles, and what is important to people navigating a sarcoma journey. But through these deeper discussions, I have been humbled, brought to tears, laughed, and most importantly educated. I have learned even more about the gaps in patient support, resources, diagnosis and treatment, some I knew about and others are new to me. A portion of these conversations that you don’t hear are the SFA team asking questions, discussing gaps and how these gaps can be filled. SFA cannot do it all, but we can bring together the right stakeholders to create changes necessary for sarcoma patients, survivors and their loved ones to thrive. These discussions, like our Race to Cure Sarcoma events, are a reminder of why SFA exists. And what drives us each day.
<p style=”text-align: center;”>2025 is about building community and infrastructure to improve outcomes.</p>
We refreshed our mission statement and strategic goals in 2024 to be intentional about addressing critical gaps to improve outcomes. This includes improving diagnosis and treatment, patient resources and education, access to treatments and sarcoma specialty care centers, and public policy. This year, SFA will expand and increase our efforts to fund impactful research, grow awareness, engage in strategic partnerships, amplify the sarcoma voice on Capitol Hill, provide resources to empower people diagnosed to advocate and participate in their care, and work in partnership to fill gaps in diagnosis and treatments.
I hope you will continue to join us for this journey. We envision a world where no one dies from sarcoma – and we envision a world where SFA no longer needs to exist. 2025 may not be the year we put ourselves out of business, but we will continue to work toward that. #curesarcoma