This Week in Advocacy | Vol. 3
Community, Connection & Courage
Every week I get to do something I genuinely love: shine a light on people who are out there doing the quiet, hard, necessary work of advocacy. Not for the applause. Not for the LinkedIn likes. Because they believe something better is possible — for their communities, for patients who come after them, for people who don’t yet know help exists. This week’s three advocates are a perfect reminder of why I started this newsletter. They showed up. They brought their full selves. And they made something move. Let’s talk about them.
Melissa Buffalo — Meeting Communities Where They Are
Melissa Buffalo traveled to Dallas for the American Cancer Society National HPV Vaccination Roundtable and the American Cancer Society National Roundtable on Cervical Cancer. And she didn’t just attend, she engaged. She got into the breakout sessions. She listened, she contributed, and she left with something concrete: a clearer sense of how to craft messaging that actually resonates with tribal communities around HPV vaccination and cervical cancer prevention.
That last part is what gets me. It’s one thing to go to a national roundtable and absorb information. It’s another to walk out thinking, how do I take this home and make it land for the people I serve? Melissa is already thinking about her communications team, her program team, her community. That’s not conference attendance, that’s advocacy in action.
Cultural relevance in cancer prevention messaging isn’t a nice-to-have. It’s the difference between a campaign that gets ignored and one that saves lives. Melissa gets that. Connect with her on LinkedIn at linkedin.com/in/melissa-f-buffalo.
Anne Easter — Building the Infrastructure of Support
Think about what it takes to host a networking session once. Now imagine doing it a third time — refining it, deepening the relationships, making it better each year. That’s what Anne Easter did at NAMICon 2026, the annual national conference of the National Alliance on Mental Illness.
Anne brought together CPALS TD Champions and NAMI Tardive Dyskinesia Education Grantees from across the country for an afternoon of shared learning and collaboration. Tardive Dyskinesia is a movement disorder often caused by medications used to treat psychiatric conditions, and it’s a community that doesn’t always get the spotlight it deserves. Anne is changing that, one connection at a time.
What strikes me about this is the sustained commitment. A third session means Anne showed up twice before, built trust, and kept going. That’s what real advocacy infrastructure looks like. It’s not a one-time event — it’s a relationship. Find Anne on LinkedIn at linkedin.com/in/anneeaster.
Valarie Traynham — Making Yourself Visible So Others Feel Less Alone
During ASCO 2026, one of the biggest oncology conferences in the world, Valarie Traynham did something quietly courageous: she shared her cancer journey at the Breakfast Club event hosted by Worldwide Clinical Trials Oncology in partnership with Imerman Angels.
I know how hard that is. When you’re a cancer survivor standing in a room full of researchers, clinicians, and trial professionals, and you decide to open up about what you actually went through - that takes something. It takes the willingness to be vulnerable in a space that often runs on data and presentations. Valarie brought the human element into that room.
Events like this exist precisely because patient voices need to be in those spaces. Research decisions, trial designs, communication strategies, they all get better when real patients speak up. Valarie did that. She made herself visible so that someone else, maybe a researcher, maybe another patient, could feel a little less alone. Connect with her at linkedin.com/in/valarietraynham.
These three are doing real work in the real world. If someone in your life is doing advocacy that deserves recognition, I want to hear about it. You can nominate someone for next week’s edition at advocacyatwork.com — and if you’re not yet subscribed, this is your sign. Drop your email and join a community that celebrates the people actually doing the work.