About Our Charities
The Harry Potter Alliance
The HP Alliance takes an outside of the box approach to activism by using parallels from the Harry Potter books to educate and mobilize young people across the world toward working for social change.
The Harry Potter Alliance was co-founded in 2005 by Andrew Slack and since then has worked on projects such as Darfur, Accio Books! (a worldwide book drive for Rwanda and local communities), fighting media consolidation, advocating for LGBTQ rights, and more.
Chapters of the HPA can do many things. They can support current HPA campaigns by fundraising and promoting. They can do volunteer work in their local communities. Or they can host fundraisers to benefit charities local to their area.
In the past, Harry Potter Alliance chapters have raised thousands of dollars for local and international charities, planned programs to educate schools and communities, and participated in numerous types of outreach including collecting canned goods for local food banks and rallying for equal rights at city parades and street fairs.
To Find out more about the HPA please visit: The Harry Potter Alliance
The Lung Cancer Alliance
Our second charity is The Lung Cancer Alliance. Lung cancer is the deadliest cancer around. It kills more people than the next four deadly cancers combined. An average of 437 people a day die of this horrible disease. Lung Cancer is the cause of one out of every three cancer deaths. Still, even though it is the deadliest cancer, it is the least funded and least researched cancer out there. Why?
STIGMA
Lung cancer has a stigma as a smoker's disease. There is an unspoken assumption that if someone has lung cancer they did it to themselves. This is not the case, and even if it was no one deserves lung cancer. Yes, lung cancer is linked with smoking and many smokers die of lung cancer. However, more and more non-smokers are being diagnosed. Over 60% of new lung cancer cases are in people who have never smoked or who are former smokers. One in five women and one in twelve men diagnosed with lung cancer never smoked.
Only 16% of lung cancer is caught in an early stage. Over the past 40 years many cancers have seen their five year survival rate increase dramatically, not lung cancer. The five year survival rate of a lung cancer patient is only 15%. In 1971 it was 13.2%. That can hardly be considered an improvement. Lack of government funding and research due to stigma has resulted in very little progress with this lethal disease.
Lung Cancer Alliance’s mission is to reverse decades of stigma and neglect by empowering those with or at risk for the disease, elevating awareness and changing health policy.
The Lung Cancer Alliance works to provide support and outreach to newly diagnosed patients and their caregivers. They provide valuable information and resources. The LCA also strives to elevate lung cancer to a national priority. Located in Washington D.C., the LCA is focused on bringing lung cancer the federal funding it needs. For more information on this organization visit: The Lung Cancer Alliance