Proclamations Time!

January is here again, and if you are familiar with The Canary Project’s work, you may know that means its time renew and revitalize our annual Proclamations Project. In years past there have been a handful of states which have joined the movement, either annually or sporadically, making proclamations declaring the month of May officially as MCS Awareness Month. Once upon a time there was a website operated by a couple who were canaries themselves, which contained an archive of these proclamations back to the 90’s. Unfortunately, due to their own deteriorating health, they had to shut down the site. A couple of years ago, The Canary Project picked up that work and made the commitment to rebuild the archive here on our site, and carry the project on.

In 2020, we started rallying volunteers around the country and around the word. The formal request for the each state’s Governor to issue these proclamations, must be submitted annually by a resident or organization located in that state. These proclamations are only made for one specific year and do not renew, so this task has to be done every year. We feel that this recognition from Governors and Mayors across the nation and around the world is hugely important for MCS gaining recognition overall as a legitimately disabling, life altering condition.

We had some great initial momentum with volunteers jumping on board in 16 states, and 2 Canadian provinces! We posted template letters and proclamation wording on the site (can be found from the menu above, under state proclamations tab). Then, well, we all know what happened in 2020. Many state's offices were shuttered, and Governors with their hands full of COVID-19 response, were understandably not able to make signing ceremonial proclamations a priority.

Its a new year now though! We are ready to jump back in with renewed enthusiasm and generate progress toward getting all 50 states this year! Please reach out if you are willing to get involved and make this request of your state's Governor.