In light of recent events, we wanted to share news from our chapter.

As you know, JDRF has been forced to postpone or cancel many of our annual fundraisers in order to keep our community safe. While the right thing to do, these cancellations left our organization with a large fundraising gap. It became clear that in order to continue to fund life-changing research, we would have to make some significant changes to our organization. These difficult decisions were not made lightly and were made with the support of our national staff and volunteer leadership.

We will be a significantly leaner organization as a result, with fewer chapters and staff moving forward. Locally, this means we had to say goodbye to some of our dedicated, loyal and tenured JDRF field staff and while previously we had three chapters across the state (Western WI, Southeastern WI, and Northeast WI) we are now partnered together as one:  JDRF Wisconsin. 

The staff dedicated to JDRF Wisconsin are as follows:

• Tanya Bissen, Executive Director
• Julie Feest, Market Director
• Dana Brill, Senior Development Manager
• Erin Vella, Development Manager
• Lottie Brooks, Development Coordinator

Thank you for your support of our T1D community and JDRF. In the coming weeks, you will see updated website content and social media pages as well as more details on how JDRF Wisconsin plans on moving the mission forward as a newly developed statewide chapter.  As questions arise, and we are confident there will be many, please don’t hesitate to reach out directly to Tanya Bissen (tbissen@jdrf.org) or Julie Feest (jfeest@jdrf.org).