Meet Kimberly Howse.  Kimberly is a wife, mother, lupus warrior and advocate, and the founder of the Howse Foundation, located in Rancho Cucamonga.  The Howse Foundation is a non-profit organization designed Kimberly and her sister to help promote healthy living with lupus. The foundation provides resources and support to patients as well as businesses and healthcare providers. It is also home to one of the nine Lupus LA support groups throughout Greater Los Angeles and Kimberly serves as is its leader.

Her personal motto is: “I have lupus, but lupus doesn’t have me.”

Kimberly and her family came to Lupus LA when she was looking for organizations that were open to providing direct support to   people with lupus.  For Kimberly, Lupus LA seemed to be a perfect fit with the goals of her foundation. Kimberly shares, “Being able to host and share my own and others’ experiences, helps us [support group members] forget about the pain we deal with on a regular basis.”

What is great about Kimberly’s story is that not only is she a leader within the Lupus LA family, but she also has personally utilized many of the services Lupus LA provides.  Kimberly is an advocate for all people with lupus – including herself. She has attended our Latest on Lupus Patient Conferences, has used our referral program, and has been the recipient of an emergency grant.  Kimberly can speak firsthand about the importance of Lupus LA to the greater lupus community-at-large.

“I don’t know that any other lupus organization offers support groups around Southern California like Lupus LA has offered and I believe that these support groups are the front line of what brings communities and the people who are dealing with this illness together.”

The Lupus LA/Howse Foundation co-sponsored support group discussed in this article meets the second Saturday of each month from 10:30am to 12:00pm.  For address    information or to learn about our other support group locations, please visit us at http://lupusla.org/patient-services/support-groups/.