The Scleroderma Foundation has chartered a new chapter to help people in Georgia who have the disease.

The chapter will help people with scleroderma  and their families with support and educational resources. It will also raise  money for new research.

The officers include Doreen Towhey and Peggy Levengood, co-presidents; Evan Busman, vice president; Jim Walsh, treasurer; and Andrea Wetherington, secretary.

There are more than 2,300 members on the national foundation's database. Scleroderma is a chronic, often progressive, autoimmune in which the immune system attacks its body.