TOLEDO – From November of last year to early March, students from around the Toledo area will be pursuing a philanthropic goal of raising as much money as possible for Blood Cancer United (BCU), a fundraising program designed to raise both funds and awareness for blood cancer, a disease that is most commonly recognized in conditions like lymphoma and leukemia.
An estimated 1,759,461 people in the U.S. are living with or in remission from leukemia, lymphoma, myeloma, myelodysplastic syndromes (MDS), or myeloproliferative neoplasms (MPNs), per BCU’s website.
This year, a pair of students from Notre Dame Academy are striving to reach their goal by their March 7 deadline. Sophomores Gracie Hunter and Hannah Tam are friends that met in their freshman year at Notre Dame, and together they decided that this year they were going to participate in BCU. The pair talked about what motivated them to participate in the challenge.
“We’d seen people do it before, and the amount of money they raised. [We saw] the impact it had. We just thought it would be something cool to do,” said Hunter.
Staying motivated is always necessary, and the daunting goal of $100,000 is enough motivation for the pair to keep working, but BCU also offers other incentives for the students participating. Along with fiscal rewards like trips to New York, BCU also offers letters of recommendations from the CEO, but the most sought-after reward is the title of National Student Visionaries of the Year. The title is awarded to the team that can raise the most money for the year.
But apart from fiscal rewards and letters from business executives, Hunter and Tam felt they have learned invaluable life skills that they feel will prepare them for the real world. Through coming up with pitches to convince companies to donate and coordinating those meetings, the pair has learned more than just how to fundraise.
“I think I’ve learned how to talk to adults and be confident, because before, I would never have been able to do something like this,” said Hunter. “Like sending a random email out, asking for thousands of dollars, and giving a pitch to a big company. I’ve gained skills through the program.”
Early on, the two found that even when pursuing an altruistic goal like raising money, frustrations still arise. Trying to find ways to approach donors and occasionally hearing only radio silence in response was deterring to say the least.
“I think the hardest part is just knowing where to start and what to start doing,” Tam remarked. “And I think it is frustrating when you reach out to some potential donors and they don’t even give anything that you expected.”
To help students find opportunities, BCU occasionally sends out “challenges” for participants. One of these challenges that the pair had participated in was sending the most emails in the month of November. Their reward for winning this challenge was the opportunity to pitch a meeting to a local company to ask for donations. Challenges like these, according to the two, help keep participants focused and give them direction.
For Hannah and Gracie, this challenge has developed a lot from an initially vague interest in the fundraiser to a nearly half-year long journey of growth and determination to raise as much money as possible. If you are interested in learning more about this project, visit their donation page.
