Meet in the District Office

Put a face on childhood cancer! While your Senators and Representatives are in Washington the majority of time, they are in their district offices very often. From now until September 2nd they are back home in their districts in August. When they are in their district office, it is a great time for you to make an impact on your legislators by putting a face on childhood cancer and showing how all children, adolescents and young adults can benefit from good legislation for which you wish to solicit their support. For example, if you are interested in a particular bill you can check here and see if they have cosponsored yet: GovTrack which is a great free tool to use to search information on any legislation of your choice and its supporters. This August, most legislators should be very interested in listening to their constituents. There are several good pieces of legislation that have a chance of passing with a little extra push from those of us who have an interest in #ChildhoodCancer. We have a good opportunity to pass a most significant bill in September in the House of Representatives that will greatly improve research for our children.

Take a look and what is at stake, contact your Congress person and ask them to support HR 1262 – the Give Kids A Chance Act by cosponsoring. Click here and Get Involved.

Every Senator and Representative has one or more offices back home in their state or district to serve the people they represent in Washington. Some Senators have as many as 6 offices located through out their state. These local offices are great places to meet your Senators, Representatives and their staffs in person. Most legislators are very eager to talk to as many of their constituents as possible about their concerns, but due to scheduling, may not be able to meet in person. That’s OK, you will be scheduled to meet with a staff member who will relate your concerns to the legislator.

Here’s some quick and easy tips on how to schedule a visit and make a successful presentation of why their support is so important to our children in the fight against childhood cancer.

Schedule an appointment. You should call at this time and request a meeting in your district office during August. To contact your legislator’s local office, click and enter your state or zip code where requested. Click here for Senator information. Click here for House of Representatives. Tell the staff person you want to schedule a meeting and which office location would be best for you.

Explain the purpose of your meeting. CLICK HERE to see if your Representative is one of the cosponsors for HR 1262 – Give Kids A Chance Act. Tell them you want to “schedule a meeting to discuss reasons why they may want to join 248 of their colleagues and also become a cosponsor on one of the most significant pieces fo childhood cancer legislation.”

Tell YOUR child’s story. When you go to the district meeting, tell your personal story, show a photo or take your child with you and demonstrate why improved drug development would help or would have helped your child. There have only been seven drugs developed specifically for childhood cancers while adults have more than three hundred. The Coalition Against Childhood Cancer has an excellent library on facts. Take a look here.

Print out materials to leave behind. Use the points covered on the Give Kids A Chance Act by CLICKING HERE.

No matter what legislation you are interested in, Always Leave a Print Out that you can hand them. Use it as the outline of your presentation. Take additional supporting evidence of the important points of your presentation if it would be helpful. Show a list of supporting childhood cancer advocacy organizations that also support your bill.

Ask for their commitment. Ask them to cosponsor the bill that you want passed to improve outcomes for children with cancer.

Remember that you may not be able to speak with the Senator or Congressman/woman and you should treat their staff person with the same respect you would if you were meeting the official directly.

Here is a handy guide to know when your Representative and Senators are going to be back home. Blue=Senate only in session, Green=House only in session, Yellow= Both House and Senate are in session. The days that are Not Highlighted are the days they will not be in their Washington, DC office.