Post DRE @ Cheshire Half & 5K

April 24th 2016

Lillian Zhang and Katie Schittina from AHS are ready to recruit donors

The weather this morning was colder than the past few mornings. My mom and I arrived at at 6:50am at Cheshire High School and looked for a parking space in the VIP parking area. There was a limited number a parking spaces even though it was “VIP” for the vendors and sponsors at the event. When we couldn’t find one, I took my swab box with info sheets and went out to find our table. This year our location is much better compared to the event we went to two years ago in 2014. We were situated at the end of the crowd for the festival, but we weren’t the absolute last table and this enabled us to be with the crowd. The only drawback to our location was we would face the sun the entire 5 hours there.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Today there were many spectators and runners- close to 4,000 runners running either the Half marathon or the 5K and around 1,000+ spectators. The atmosphere was amazing- people were getting ready for their race and visiting families were wandering around the festival area. There was even a live band that would play some select songs from The Killers, Blink-182, and Maroon. There was even a VIP Hospitality tent for us vendors/sponsors and provided us treats like bagels and coffee (and I needed that after skipping breakfast)!

The 5K began at 8:30am, a little off than the supposed 8am start. Although there were more people who attended this year, not a lot of people stopped by our table. Reflecting on this, I think by not bringing the usual “Give A Spit-Help Cancer Patients” sign may have been a cause for this. Usually, the sign would draw attention and those who come by would inquire what the sign meant and would be intrigued by the project of mine enough to join the registry. I also noticed most of the people who did come by the table had already signed up with Be The Match and already knew about the donor registry. I even learned one woman’s brother’s life was saved by a bone marrow transplant from Be The Match!

Results:

In the end, we had 4 interested people sign up and swab!

And we sold $8 more worth of cookies and donations! (read more about the bake sale held the day before: Post April Bake Sale)

That means we have raised a total of $100 for Be The Match, and will be able to provide funding to do HLA tissue typing tests for a potential donor to be added to the registry and thus giving blood cancer patients another set of tissue type DNA to match with!

Today was a great experience! I’d like to give a shoutout to my mom for helping me as well as Katie S. from the AHS Give A Spit Club for volunteering.

Thanks for reading!

Lillian Zhang

Give A Spit, Amity High School

Post April Bake Sale

Bake Sale April 23rd, 2016

The most ironic part about the bake sale was bringing baked goods such as cupcakes, sugar cookies, M&M cookies, as well as rice krispy treats to sell in front of a “natural foods” Edge of the Woods in New Haven. People who shop here usually avoid sugary foods or are allergic to some ingredients used like eggs or milk. Some are also vegan. On top of that, this weekend was Passover, so those who celebrate that holiday would avoid flour and flour is essential to a baked good.

Despite the obstacles, Katie Schittina (a volunteer) and I adapted the bake sale into a donation stop for bills and short change. The turnout was unexpectedly low, but we were thankful the weather didn’t change on us and the 10am cloudy skies soon became sunny skies. The heat threw us off, and did do harm to our cupcakes. The homemade frosting of one tray of the cupcakes melted! Unfortunately, we didn’t sell many cupcakes, but the large cookies and rice krispy treats were a hit!

The ironic location for the bake sale

Delicious treats sold

We present to you AHS Give A Spit Club’s first bake sale!

Katie S. and I raised $92 today for Be The Match and although we didn’t hit the $100 mark, we will aim higher next year!

$100 will allow one potential donor who signed up to join the registry to have their swab kit be tested using HLA tissue typing. This allows a person to be added to the registry increasing the chances cancer patients have to finding a match to receive a marrow donation.

Thanks,

Lillian Zhang

April Update

Hello Readers!

April will be a busy month for the club. The club held a meeting recently on April 14th. I established two key events we are attending.

1. Bake Sale at Edge of the Woods: April 23rd, from 10am to 2pm
2. DRE @ Cheshire Half Marathon and 5K: April 24th from 7am to 12pm

I realize that both of these events take place during the April vacation break. Not all club members will be able to attend but I encouraged all to participate in some way whether by baking something or volunteering for a couple of hours!

There will be post-event summaries to follow up on what occurred and gauge our success. I am especially excited for the Cheshire Half DRE because two years ago I attended the race and recruited the most donors from that single day as compared to other events I’ve been to!

As for May, it will be another busy month for students with exams, and preparation for finals. However, I expect to have another meeting with a club activity. May is also the month when Relay for Life takes place, and this may conflict with our club goals. I am trying to squeeze in another DRE in May, and if that doesn’t happen, I will try for June!

I am thinking about about holding a walk to raise money for Be The Match after the little success we had to passing the plan for holding a race. The logistics are similar but operating a walk should be less worrisome when there won’t be any worrying to do with the runners’ insurance and possible accidents. This is still in the works! The possibility of getting this plan passed by administration is difficult because the school does not want to get mixed up in our business if we fail to execute the walk correctly. To view this optimistically, there is another option of changing the location to avoid the administration hassle. I’ve contacted the New Haven Lighthouse Park director who mentions there are forms that need to be filled out but the application process is not as intensive as the school board’s. Of course, this idea needs to be brought to the club first to see if there is any support to back up the proposal. Once the initial review is completed, I will keep you all up to date with fundraiser walk! If anyone has had prior experience, please contact me at giveaspit@gmail.com. I appreciate your time for reading!

 

Lillian Zhang