Just a quick note to let you know that you’ve made something AMAZING happen.
For more than a year, and through some of the most difficult conditions in recent memory thanks to the global pandemic, Planned Parenthood staff across the states of Alaska, Hawai‘i, Idaho, Indiana, Kentucky, and Washington have worked tirelessly to pull together a first-of-its-kind, country-spanning merger, to better serve patients and protect reproductive rights across the six states.
Thanks to your support as of April 1, 2021 we are officially Planned Parenthood Great Northwest, Hawai‘i, Alaska, Indiana, Kentucky! The paperwork is signed, and teams, infrastructure, and systems in each state are moving in concert - all six states are humming along together, for the health of our many diverse communities. It brings me great joy and immense pride to see this organization stand as a united force for reproductive health and justice, despite everything the movement (and the world) faced and fought through in 2019 and 2020. Together, this organization serves the largest geographic region of any Planned Parenthood affiliate in the country.
That includes 40 state-of-the-art health centers, and more than 122,000 people across all our communities who got access to inclusive, expert, top-quality reproductive health care in just the last year alone. You made this possible - you’ve helped us become stronger together.
That shared strength doesn’t stop with our health centers. The merged public policy teams of Planned Parenthood Alliance Advocates have worked together through two years of tough legislative sessions. Now they’re a well-oiled machine adapted to the needs of each state, and ready to fight for better health care policies and stronger protections for your reproductive rights.
Planned Parenthood educators across the six states continue to build on their shared expertise, optimizing education offerings and meeting the needs of each unique student community we serve - now with a much wider reach, and a broader palette of educator skill sets to draw from. Proven Sex Ed programs like Teen Council are still happening virtually for now, but with a cautiously optimistic eye toward a return to in-person learning.
You’ll hear a lot more over the coming months about the positive impacts and outcomes your support of Planned Parenthood Great Northwest, Hawai‘i, Alaska, Indiana, Kentucky is creating for people in your community - and for people and communities across the country.
The last thing I want to leave you with today is my boundless gratitude. This merger will truly make Planned Parenthood, in all six states, a more powerful defender and proponent of reproductive health and freedom. I have no doubt we’ll need to marshal every ounce of that power in some of the legislative and legal battles that lie ahead.
That power - the strength of the Planned Parenthood movement - comes from you. And I am absolutely thrilled to see the amazing things we’ll continue to make happen together.
Onward!
Christine R. Charbonneau, CEO
Tags: merger, Health_care_access