Pulmonary Fibrosis Foundation Promoting Awareness Month with Range of Activities

The Pulmonary Fibrosis Foundation is marking Pulmonary Fibrosis Awareness Month in September with a range of festivities across the United States.

Some of the activities will allow patients, caregivers, and healthcare professionals to share their stories and knowledge with each other.

The first event will be the inaugural walk at Chicago’s Lincoln Park on Sept. 9. If you can’t attend, you can show your support by taking part in a virtual walk, registering at the event website.

Events will focus not only on providing educational support to patients, families, and healthcare professionals, but also raising funds for research.

For a complete list of activities, please check out the foundation events calendar.

Nowadays social media are a source of information, and also an important way for people to communicate with each other. So the foundation wants to leave its awareness imprint there as well.

Throughout September, the Foundation is promoting a 30 Facts In 30 Days campaign in social media. This educational effort will provide facts about pulmonary fibrosis on the foundation’s Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram accounts.

You can support PF Awareness Month by sharing these facts, a cover photo and profile pictures you can download from the foundation’s website.

Using with the hashtags #PulmonaryFibrosisMonth, #BlueUp4PF, #PFWarrior, #pulmonaryfibrosis, and #makeeverybreathcount can make the campaign more effective.

Diane Reichert, a Pulmonary Fibrosis Foundation ambassador who died of the disease in 2015, came up with the #BlueUp4PF hashtag. To honor her and all PF patients, and to raise awareness of the disease, the foundation encourages everyone to wear blue and to share selfies of themselves with the campaign sign.

Also during September, the foundation will also expand its weekly Portraits of Pulmonary Fibrosis feature on Facebook to a more frequent format. It invites all PF community members to share their stories during the month.

In addition, the foundation is inviting people to become a member and help it raise $15.000 during September. Starting a personal fundraising page or creating an event will help support the foundation’s mission. For additional information, contact Amy Kozyra, the foundation’s development manager, at [email protected].

Another way to help is to convince your state and local officials to proclaim September as Pulmonary Fibrosis Awareness Month. And still another is to promote the month, and local activities associated with it, in in hometown media.

To share stories and pictures, please send an email to [email protected].