In a live, interactive broadcast “powered and produced by the Force for Health Network,” three co-hosts anchored an hour-plus “season of gratitude.” Their shared message: sickle cell care is a family. Every quote below plays the exact moment from the broadcast — just tap it.
Why we pause
Co-host Lucy Howell set the tone for the year-end pause.
It's too important to come to a year end, you know, and not be able to just take at least an hour, if not ninety minutes.
Courtney Slanacker of the Red Cross turned gratitude into an ask, reframing the holidays around blood.
And that gift today doesn't look in the shape of a gift bag, but in the shape of a blood bag.
Board chair Sarah Spiekermeier — CEO of Banner University Family Care — celebrated a year of partnership.
I love that you brought in the partnership because that's exactly what this has been from the beginning, all of us coming together.
Family, screening & mainstream awareness
Dr. Rob Gillio highlighted a milestone in how the wider culture is finally seeing sickle cell — an accurate portrayal on mainstream TV.
But the point is that Hollywood mainstream picked up on the message that Moses taught me and the rest of you reinforced.
Board member Ericka Lassiter, who carries her late husband’s legacy through a foundation of her own, introduced herself as so many parents in the audience would.
I'm a mother of a sickle cell survivor, Quincy Lassiter.
Fran, who runs Arizona’s newborn screening, put the scale of the state’s daily safety net into one number.
There's about seventy eight thousand babies born in Arizona every year, and each one is screened for sickle cell.
Headwinds, resilience & the road ahead
The most sobering note came from Renaldo Fowler of Disability Rights Arizona, whose in-person African American Conference on Disabilities was cut by a federal funding restriction.
We received a letter from the Department of Justice that we can no longer use any federal dollars within our organization to do anything based on race, ethnic, and demographics.
His colleague Natalie Luna Rose answered the moment with a call to lean on one another.
Because I think we are living in uncertain times right now. And so we need to really lean on each other.
And Moses Akpan closed the year on the story that started the Foundation — and a vow.
A few go to where there are no paths and leave a trail. So hopefully, the effort would leave a trail for others to follow.