This picture shows my co-chair from 2008 Relay, Lisa Winton, and I celebrating our record breaking $124,000 raised (until last year when we raised $146,000) at the University of Cincinnati. I really like it because it represents that we were really successful, even though raising money can be very difficult to do, especially on a college campus.
Above is a picture of the Luminaria bags that we use at Relay For Life. Each bag represents someone who is currently fighting cancer, who has survived cancer, or who has been lost to cancer. Seeing how many of these bags that we were able to use in our Relay For Life has taught me how much people really care about fighting this terrible disease, and that we need to remember why it is important to fight back.
The above picture is important to me because it shows how the students at the University of Cincinnati are part of such a great, worldwide movement to fight cancer. Not only is this going on on our campus and in Ohio, but also in 19 countries outside of the United States. Through understanding how great Relay For Life is, it gives me hope that people all around the world can unite for one cause and fight back together.
Above shows the survivors and their families that come to our event at the Survivor Dinner and during other parts of the kick-off to the event. These pictures are important to me because each survivor and their story shows how you can beat the odds. The fact that the number of survivors, just at our own event, grows each year is representative of the fact that we are really making progress in curing cancers.
The above overhead images of McMicken Commons (yes, that's McMicken!) are very special to me because you can see just how many UC Students, Faculty, Staff, and members of the community are taking the time out of their lives to be there at Relay. I think that I really learned that people can be inspired, and people can be brought together. It represents to me how special the community here at the University of Cincinnati is, as well as how much we all really care about making a difference.
The two pictures above are, I think, really awesome. The top picture shows a woman and her daughter, enjoying the fun of Relay with the Bearcat, and the bottom picture shows our youngest cancer survivor with the Bearcat. It is important to me because it shows how people in the community are supporting the Relay at UC, and also that young people are getting involved as well. I love children, and I was thrilled to have some each year at the event.
This is a picture from the 2009 Relay For Life event. The awesome lady dressed as a clown (for our Circus theme) works in an on-campus office, and her fellow staff members secretly raised a bunch of money for Relay in her honor to surprise her. She is a cancer survivor, and with the microphone she told the crowd what type of cancer she had and how long she had been in remission. When the survivors kick-off the event, I think it is really inspirational to the crowd, and it is important to me, like so many others of these photos, because it represents hope.
What I love about the two photos directly above is that they represent what a spirited event Relay is for the University of Cincinnati. At the top, students from Xavier (who plan their Relay event) are shown getting pie-ed in the face by our students. All in good fun, of course, this specific part of Relay actually raised about $100. Bearcats are always Bearcats, even during a cancer fundraiser. Then below that, you can see the Band as they enthusiastically help us kick off the festivities of the night. These pictures are important to me because they show me that this event was not only an awesome event for the American Cancer Society, but that it was a great event for our University, full of Bearcat spirit, too!
Last, but certainly not least, this picture is very close to my heart. I am in the center, and to my right is Ryan Vose, to my left is Megan Hathaway. Ryan is the one who really got me involved in Relay For Life during my freshman year, and helped me as a mentor in my first year as Chair. Megan was my co-Chair last year, and now she Chairs Relay with two other outstanding leaders and I am guiding them as a mentor while I transition out of my undergraduate time here. I think that this picture reminds me that those who came before me put in a great deal of work into making Relay the event that it is today, and as I mentor the new leaders now I can help shape the future of the event. I hope that it continues to grow and prosper, not only raising money but bringing the University of Cincinnati together every spring in what I believe is the most special event that happens all year.
Click here for a link to a YouTube video that I created last year as a promotional tool for Relay For Life.
By creating the above video, I learned that when you want to plan something that involves a large amount of people, you need them to be excited about it, informed on why it needs to happen and why it is important, and inspired to make a difference by being involved in it. It is one of the many avenues that we used to try and make sure to reach as many people as we could and spread the word about our mission.
Click here for a poster I created for the 2009 Relay For Life.
By creating the above poster which worked very well last year, I created a tool that a lot of community and other college Relays use now. Everyone liked it so much that now they're using it all over Ohio, and I take a lot of pride in that because I think it's really exciting to help other Relay-ers with their marketing. I learned that sharing your best practices and cool resources helps everyone get better, and through a lot of collaboration with other college and community Relay-ers I also learned a lot that we put to use at the University of Cincinnati. Teamwork in this kind of work is essential! It is like the air that Relay For Life breathes. I don't think I ever really understood how awesome collaboration and Teamwork could be until I had the experience through Relay For Life.
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