Page 5 - HFA Dateline 2016 Q3 Fall

Member Organization Spotlight:

Hemophilia Foundation of Southern California

HFA sat down with Michelle Kim, Esq., the executive director of the Hemophilia HFA: You’ve incorporated
Foundation of Southern California, to talk about the organization’s services and HFA’s Dads in Action and Blood
plans for the future. Brotherhood programming into

HFA: What areas of Southern California do you serve? your organization’s offerings.
What kind of impact has that
Michelle: We serve nine counties in the Southern California Region: San Luis
Obispo, Santa Barbara, Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside, Kern, Ventura, San Bernardi- had on the organization and
your local community?
no, and Inyo.
Michelle: One of our goals was to
HFA: What are some of the biggest challenges faced by your build up a community we felt had been
organization? disenfranchised and disengaged: dads
Michelle: Insurance issues continue to be a big problem, but actually, outreach to and Blood Brothers. Our board of di-
the teen and young adult population is proving to be a real challenge. For people in rectors gave us the flexibility to create
that age group, their treatment protocols are stabilized and many do not want to be appealing, new activities and we made
associated with having a medical disorder. To address this issue, we initiated a Teen use of the impressive roster of knowl-
Leadership Program, hosting six teenagers for one week at a nearby hotel. The group edgeable speakers from HFA. Many of
worked in our office, created a public service announcement video, was trained on our members had been requesting pro-
résumé development and interview skills, and met with an HTC. HFA staff member grams like these for years, so when we
Janel Johnson-Momanyi led the group in an advocacy training session to prepare managed to launch them, the response
them to meet with a local legislator. And, happily, that legislator ultimately voted in was extremely favorable. So far in 2016,
favor of the Senate Bill we were supporting. we have hosted 11 HFA programs in-
cluding a one-day retreat titled “Grow-
ing Older with Hemophilia and Sports”
which included fun and unusual activi-
ties like mining for geodes. The men
also did some freshwater fishing, catch-
ing the tilapia that they then grilled

Fall 2016 | Dateline Federation 5