How you can support the Rally for Medical Research

On Monday, April 8, representatives from more than 150 organizations from around the nation will gather in Washington, D.C. to Rally for Medical Research—Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center among them. The rally will take place at 11 a.m.-12:15 p.m. EST (8 a.m. PST) on the Carnegie Library Grounds at Mt. Vernon Square.

Thousands of advocates, survivors, researchers, clinicians, business leaders, and members of the general public will journey to Washington to rally for research with a united voice. Here are ways to make your voice heard from here at home:

• Call on policymakers – Ask them to make lifesaving medical research funding a national priority.
• Share the Fred Hutch Facebook post on the rally. 
• Create your own Facebook post on the rally. Rally organizers have created several graphics, listed below, for use as Facebook posts or as attachments in your tweets. Images can make social media messages more visible.
  • More Progress, Hope, Life
  • Let Your Voice Be Heard
  • America Speaks
  • Basic Rally Information
  • National Priority (tall)
  • National Priority (wide)
• Tweet using the hashtag #RallyMedRes. The Rally for Medical Research will take place during the American Association for Cancer Research's Annual Meeting 2013; the meeting's official hashtag is #AACR. Should you reference the rally in relation to the AACR Annual Meeting, please make note of the #AACR hashtag.  
• Follow on Twitter – Rally organizers created Twitter lists for you to "subscribe" to and/or follow. These lists can help you easily identify or follow individuals with whom you want to tweet. The rally team will be sending at least one direct message about the rally to some of its media contacts and congressmen/women and they encourage the public to do the same.
  - Medical/Health Reporters
  - Research and Health Organizations (the list of all the partnering organizations)
  
• Watch the rally video – The rally will be recorded and streamed live on YouTube.   

The unified call to action will raise awareness about the critical need for a sustained investment in the National Institutes of Health to improve health, spur more progress, inspire hope and save lives.