I chaired the Texas A&M University-Commerce event for two years and I now serve as their university faculty advisor. Anyway, one of our biggest challenges was getting youth survivors involved. We got faculty and community survivors to come out, but younger people have perhaps more reservations about being on the "spotlight" or being recognized as survivors. Does anyone have suggestions or ideas on how to involve and recruit youth/college survivors?
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August 26, 2006 - 2:22pm
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Finding Survivors at the Health Clinic
I am the Event Chair at Florida Gulf Coast University and we actually talked to the doctors and staff at our University Clinic and got permission to put flyers up with information about Relay For Life all in the form of an invitation inviting survivors and caregivers to our Event Kick-Off. You may also try the same set-up at the local hospital.
Best of Luck,
Stephanie Goodwin
youth surviors
I was on the committee for the University of Tennessee's Relay for Life the year after it got started. What we found worked best for us was word of mouth. Talk to people on your committee, you might be surpirsed how many of them are suriviors themselves or know people who are survivors. Also, we were forunate enough to have a children's hospital near campus and were able to recruit from there as well. Good luck!
Texas A&M go Auggies, I went
Texas A&M go Auggies, I went to A&M, class of 2001!!!! The best thing to do to atract younger participants is getting their attention with somethig they enjoy. Give out free recordable CD's, that works like a charm........ (even free condoms :)
Later Fader...
You can contact me at my site http://www.edguider.com/
Young Survivors
I am co-chairing the Relay For Life of UC Davis right now and we have had a difficult time getting young cancer survivors to be involved as well. Many of our dedicated survivors actually receive the young cancer survivors scholarship, so it may be useful to contact your local ACS office or talk to your staff partner. They may be able to put you in contact with these young survivors. Also, if your college has a Colleges Against Cancer chapter, they may have connections with young cancer survivors so it would be beneficial to work with them too. We have found it is very helpful to have young survivors contact and work closely with other young survivors. If you find one dedicated survivor, perhaps they can be the point of contact for other young survivors. It's one of the things that has worked best for us. Hope this helps. :)
Sarah Evingham
One thing you can do is have
One thing you can do is have a young (ish) cancer survivor personally invite people. Also I know my school has one and yours might too, but there might be a facebook group for cancer survivors. Use that to issue them an invite to kickoffs or rallies as well as the main event.
Joined: 2006-08-25