Beards for cancer raises funds for cancer
The first snowfall of the year was the perfect set-up for students to buy a steamy cup of hot cocoa and a wintry glazed doughnut in support of the Utah State University Beards for Cancer club.
Every year for the past five years, the Beards for Cancer club has taken advantage of the holiday season to fundraise money for local cancer patients. This fall marks the first year the club is university official.
Daria Griffith, current president and public relations manager of the USU Beards for Cancer club, said the council and club members typically organize a month-long fundraiser during the fall season. The month is full of small events happening about once a week, which mostly consist of food sales and their annual Beard Showcase in December. So far the club has made over $300 with hot chocolate and doughnut sales alone. All the proceeds will go to the chosen cancer victims for that year.
“The neat thing this year is that we, as regular students, have been able to make this a university function. We are an official organization. We have a bank account,” Griffith said.
Griffith’s heavy involvement in other organizations around campus was a big help towards the success that the club has seen so far.
“I had to pull in a lot of my connections with my involvement and ask a lot of favors,” she said.
The club is also partnering with the Service Center because they are the ones giving the club the non-profit license.
“The Service Center has been an awesome help. Shoutout to Todd Brown because he’s been figuring out all of the resources for this project,” Griffith said. “We work together on a lot of this and the whole council shares an equal part in figuring out who to go to and make it happen.”
The club’s committee is made up of five people who were assigned to work together in their small group communications class. They were asked to come up with a service-learning project that would assist in the community, so Griffith approached the group with the USU Beards for Cancer Club.
Griffith said she volunteered for Beards for Wayne, the name of the club from last year, and she knew that nobody had taken the initiative to follow through with the club this year.
“As this class project came to light and our group was involved in it, I thought it was a great idea,” said Sherri Dever, the financial manager for the Beards for Cancer club.
This year the club is going by the title ‘Beards for Cancer’ because they are raising money for two recipients, as opposed to the traditional one recipient that it has been in years past.
The committee sat down for three days reviewing applications from cancer victims and friends of cancer victims, until narrowing it down to two final recipients. The nomination process, in and of itself, was an eye-opener for the club.
“It was really great for our committee to read story after story and just wanting to help everyone. It was great to see how we could benefit others,” Griffith said.
The recipients this year are Erik Gray, former USU student and active A-team member, and Rocio Guadarrama, a local in Cache Valley who was originally born in Mexico.
“We wanted someone from the valley, someone that the community could help and be passionate for,” Griffith said. “Someone that deserves it, not necessarily treatment-wise, but someone that has given a lot in their life and would be blessed by receiving for once.”
As the project has materialized throughout the semester, the council members have grown to love the project and its cause.
“There’s so many people out there that suffer with different things and cancer is definitely a concern in our community,” Dever said. “I just felt like this would be a really good cause, especially with the holiday season.”
Griffith said working together on this project in connection with the small group communications class has taught the club members more than they expected.
“This class is the hardest class I have ever taken, not because of the assignments, but because of the emotional connection,” Griffith said. “You learn how to deal with conflict in a personal way.”
Dever said she enjoys talking with people and picking up on their social habits.
“Most people shy away from dealing with groups and we learn how to deal with them more effectively, so this is a great class for us,” Dever said.
Dever also said she has been able to apply the concepts that they are learning in the classroom to the project.
“A lot of things that I’m learning as we watched people walk by today is something that we call ‘conflict avoidance.’ As people walk along the sidewalk, they avoid us as we’re trying to promote our cause,” she said, “Just to notice that is interesting to me.”
Brittnie Thomas, the resources manager for the USU Beards for Cancer Club, said all of the committee members are very different from each other and that it is important for them to use that as a strength.
“It’s really important for me to be honest in my opinions and my perspectives and to share them with the others,” Thomas said. “It ensures that we cover and consider everything that we should to make this successful.”
A common theme all the committee members have learned throughout this project is that diversity is a strength.
A person who does everything by the book, Griffith said the impending circumstance of spending hours with a random group of people on a project that may or may not see successful results was terrifying.
“It meant I had to be paired with very different people from myself and learn how to not be afraid of it,” Griffith said. “We’ve been able to do some amazing things because of it.”
Thomas and Dever both recognized it was important that despite their differences, everybody involved in the club was working towards a cause greater than themselves.
“Being involved in the club and with this cause makes you look at your own life and put yourself in people’s shoes that struggle with things like cancer and problems in their families,” Dever said. “Even a little bit of help from the community helps lift spirits.”
Like the flakes of snow on her hair from the snowfall, Griffith’s dedication to the club glistened in her eyes as she said diversity and the power of an individual’s influence are the morals and keystones of this project.
She hopes the club can become an Aggie tradition and stay active in its goal to connect students in the community through charity and service.
Dever said she hopes people will stay involved with Beards for Cancer and students will stay aware of its ultimate purpose.
“We aren’t going to take care of any major medical bills. We aren’t going to save anyone’s life, but we are going to make a difference in someone’s life,” she said.
—isabel.forinash@aggiemail.usu.edu
@imforinash