The BBB cuts to science, health, education and disaster response are impacting former and current WP residents today and certainly will in the future. The next flood is all but inevitable. What will happen when it hits? To our schools and future grads?

I will add that WP suffered a terrible flood in 2011, including my family's home. 8 feet of water on the first floor! #FEMA helped our beautiful community rebuild. But the ripple effects are still being felt with the impending closure of our beloved public school which is reeling from revenue loss.

Increased investment in the NIH and NSF would offer my young WP relatives the high paying jobs of today and the future. Personally, I’d love to raise my children in WP, in the community that made me. But that future requires us to build on tomorrow, not only by honoring our past.

Some of my younger family members, also from WP, bright and driven, are studying science in college. They have so much promise. Yet now they are struggling to find internships and other opportunities because of the recent devastation to NIH/NSF and health.

Yet, we can’t simply rebuild the past. Instead, we must ask: what kind of future can we create for today’s youth in WP? As honorable as my Nona's work was, I don't know many young people that strive to work long hard hours in a factory like her.

My journey, from WP to scientific research, was powered by investments in the #NIH and #education, which are now being drastically cut. I understand why Vance’s promise to restore factory jobs resonates in NEPA. My family faced job losses when NAFTA hit hard in the '90s.

I grew up with traditions: Catholic school, pizza on Fridays, and Sundays in church. Those values instilled a lifelong commitment to service that led me into #publichealth, where I now work to end the #HIV epidemic through #science and compassion.

My family immigrated to NEPA from Italy in the 1920s. My Nona worked in a garment factory making pennies on the dollar. Two generations later, and I'm a researcher at a top US university, a path I never could have dreamed but was possible because of US investments in small communities like WP.

❤️Thank you so much.

Really appreciate it! Just to note for everyone that all these funds will go directly to our team in Uganda to maintain clinical care and research capacity.

Thank you so much! Our collaborator Phil Kreniske set up a secure donation site through CUNY.
www.tfaforms.com/5173879

Thanks Marc!