The inaugural AUTO Ball: Race for Global Education and Awareness, originally scheduled to take place at the National Museum of Transportation - Earl C. Lindburg Auto Center in St. Louis, MO, where our organization is headquartered. However, due to COVID-19, this gala, and associated activities, was hosted ONLINE on our Facebook page, featuring LIVE episodes of our AiArthritis Voices 360 Talk Show! 

The AUTO Ball 

Race for Education, Advocacy, & Research

Our unique mission is to help others, like us, living with AUTOimmune Arthritis or AUTOinflammatory Arthritis diseases, have a voice "at the table" - alongside other stakeholders as equals - so together we can solve problems that impact education, advocacy, and research.  But due to geography, disease limitations, or lack of patient advocacy experience, many affected by AiArthritis diseases may not have the opportunity to have their voice counted. To accommodate those needs, we built our organization to function predominantly ONLINE so that all people could change the world from their sofas. However, not all people participate in conversations online. How will these people know we exist? Furthermore, without community outreach to essential stakeholders, such as doctors offices, hospitals, and companies whose employees are affected by AiArthritis diseases, how will they know about the services we provide? We realized to broaden our reach and ensure all voices are "at the table" - including both patients and other stakeholders - in 2020 we would introduce our organization to the OFFLINE community. 

To reach patients and supporters offline, in late 2019 we launched the AiArthritis Voices 360 Talk Show, a podcast designed to tour to physical locations globally so more patients could join us "at the table" at in-person discussions or events. In conjunction with this new show, we planned our first gala- the AUTO Ball: Race to Education, Awareness, and Research - to introduce our organization to the OFFLINE community and raise the funds necessary to expand our reach through 2021. Through LIVE AiArthritis Voices 360 Talk Shows and creative auto-themed educational activities, this event aimed to teach attendees who we are, what we do, how we do it, and why our work can positively impact local communities. We scheduled the AUTO Ball to take place on May 2nd, 2020, in our headquarters city of St. Louis, MO at the National Museum of Transportation - Earl C. Lindberg Auto Center.  The date was chosen In honor of Arthritis Awareness Month and in conjunction with the first initiative we ever established as an organization - World AUTOimmune & AUTOinflammatory Arthritis Day (May 20th, 2012). 

While our original plans to host the AUTO Ball was interrupted due to COVID-19, that did not prevent us from attempting to reach our goal to broaden our reach. From May 16 - 20th we hosted our AiArthritis Voices 360 Talk Show LIVE on our Facebook page, featuring key projects, and demonstrating how our work to include all voices "at the table" is necessary to impact change. The content recorded during this event is available to view on our Facebook page. The show producers will also be editing the material and turning the recordings into future Talk Show podcast episodes.

LEARN MORE ABOUT THE AUTO BALL EVENT & LIVE EPISODES!

Precision medicine, e-Health, new AiArthritis databank and more ... check out what you missed!

It's not too late to pull up a seat "at the table"! You can still learn about our projects and how YOU can get involved in the conversations that will solve problems impacting education, advocacy, and research. 
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