Location: American Cancer Society Office
Date: Wednesday, April 17, 2013; 6:30-7:30 pm
I have no idea how it happened,
but by end of this evening, I was a member of the Steering Committee for organizing ‘Making Strides Against Breast Cancer’. It started with an email which came in the
previous night announcing a meeting the next day at the offices of The American Cancer Society. I had other things planned and no intention of
attending. Plus it was raining in the
evening and I was drenched as soon as I had my office. However, somewhere between there and Michigan
Avenue, I decided to attend the meeting and thus arrived in the lobby of the
building dripping from head to toe.
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| Why we were there |
I went upstairs to the ACS
offices and was led to a big conference room where Adam, the ACS representative, and some other volunteers – all women – were already gathered. I took the front row and Adam thanked us all
for coming. Before we began, he asked us
to introduce ourselves and state our reason for coming. I said that unfortunately, actually
fortunately, I did not have a story or a reason for being there. I said that I like to volunteer and never say
no when asked. This was not the case
with the other attendees, including Adam.
Everyone present had been directly affected by the disease, either
through some loved one or were themselves survivors. Once all the introductions were done, we were
ready to move to the main reason why we were here.
Last October I had participated
in the walk and this was the first of many committee meetings to plan,
organize and eventually accomplish the event for this year. Unlike last year, when the event was
conducted at Montrose Harbor, this one is going to be held at Soldier Field on
October 26th of this year. The
job of this committee would be to (1) Seek Event Support through Recruitment,
Sponsorship and Publicity and (2) Enhance Event Experience through celebrating
Survivorship and through Entertainment and Activities. This non-competitive 5K walk is ACS’ premier
event to raise awareness and money to fight breast cancer. Besides that, at the event, ACS honors breast
cancer survivors and those lost to the disease.
As can be expected, this is a
huge undertaking and is made possible through the efforts of members on this
steering committee. Adam showed us the
structure of the committee, which included several sub-committee’s managing key
recruitment and fund raising activities, as well as planning the day-off events
such as entertainment and survivorship. He
made it clear that while each sub-committee had an area of focus, Recruitment
would be everyone’s number 1 priority.
Then he went on to give examples of how we would do that through variety
of avenues such ranging from cold calling to peer recruitment to activities
such as ‘Paint The Town Pink’
publicity events as well as a ‘Kick-off
breakfast’. The other main focus
area would be arranging for Sponsorship, either monetary or through in-kind
support. None of this would be done
without a definite plan and that’s what the sub-committees were there for. For the day-of Entertainment activities, the
sub-committee would be responsible for securing music and performers as well as
other fun things for kids and adults.
Finally, one of the main attractions of the day is engaging survivors, treating them like celebrities and making the event experience extra
special for them.
Adam asked us to note down our
interest in chairing any of these sub-committees, though it would not be a
pre-requisite and we could just participate by helping out in one or more areas
– which is what I preferred to do. Then
we looked at the upcoming tentative meeting schedule, which included a meeting
a month till August and then increased frequency as we got closer to the
event. Before we disbanded, Adam said
that there was a giveaway and since ACS calls themselves ‘The official sponsors of birthdays’, he would give the present to
whomever’s birthday was the closest. No
one attending had a birthday in March or May.
Finally we came to June and two people, including me raised their
hand. The other lady said hers was June
12th. I looked at her
sheepishly, apologized and was soon holding the gift in my hand, having beaten
her by a day. It was a key-chain which
has a pink ribbon on one end and the letters “HOPE”. It now occupies a
proud place on my office wall.
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| My gift |
As I left that day, I realized how
unique I must have felt to all the people in that room. I was the only person without a story. Everyone had a really good reason to be
involved. That makes this an even bigger
responsibility for me and I owe it to everyone, not just the people in that
room, to do my best. I may have entered
that room to get away from the rain, but now I was a part of the movement. I took a cab ride to my next destination, and
the driver had filled the inside with pictures of couples. I asked him about it and he said that he ran
a dating agency and was in the business of setting people up. I asked if he was any good at it and he said
that so far his dating agency had resulted in 3 weddings. He went on to say that his target was
20. I asked him why stop at 20 and his
response was that he wanted to retire at the age of 90 and 20 seemed
realistic. I exited the cab laughing and
it was probably the right place to have been at after the meeting. Yes, we are doing our best to beat a disease that has taken the life of many women and we will do our best to overcome
it. But there’s also life and love
beyond cancer. My job was to work with
my fellow committee members to ensure that people do celebrate birthdays for
years to come, and some may even end up in that cab… and add a number to the
gentleman’s count.
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