Yesterday, I spent most of my time working with Flashes’s website. In order to acknowledge a photographer’s donation of time and services, Flashes records every photographer’s name and link to their personal website on the Flashes of Hope webpage. Along with the photographer’s information, a picture that the photographer took at one of the Flashes shoots is also included to display their talent. Since there are only 10 women that work at the Cleveland base, this is one of the projects that needs additional help. So, I was in charge of going through the logs from every chapter and adding any photographers that were not already listed on the website. I actually really liked doing this because I had the chance to go through the entire database of pictures form various photo shoots and pick my favorite photo for each photographer that I added to the site. A majority of the photos showed patients smiling and enjoying the shoot with their family, friends, or stuffed animals. However, a percentage of the photos showed patients who had just undergone their chemotherapy treatment, and were too weak or in too much pain to even smile. While those pictures were extremely depressing, the many other photos that picture the patients laughing and playing really showed the great impact that these Flashes photo shoots had on their disposition.
In the afternoon, I was supposed to attend a Kick-It pep rally at Brecksville Middle School. However, there was a little miscommunication between one of the Kick-It representatives, Cathy, and I, so I unfortunately ended up not being able to make it to the pep rally in time. Cathy was completely understandable about the misunderstanding and promised to take me to a different rally sometime within the next few weeks. So… I guess I learned the importance of communication in a business?
Since I can’t talk about the rally, obviously, I guess I’ll just explain what Kick-It is and hope to write about my involvement with the program another day. Kick-It is a national fundraising program that was started by Quinn Clarke (Allison Clarke’s son) when he was nine years old, in the midst of his cancer battle. He hoped to raise money for cancer research through the game of kickball. The first kickball game held to raise money for research took place in Chagrin Falls. Now, Kick-It events take place all over the country. Since the program’s start, over 150 games have been played nationally and over $273,000 has been donated. The fundraising and set-up for the event is somewhat similar to Relay for Life. So, if a neighborhood, school, or business decided to hold a Kick-It event, people within that community would form multiple kickball teams that started fundraising during the months leading to the event. Money is also collected through admission to the kickball games and through food sales. 100% of the funds raised from Kick-It events are given to the world’s largest pediatric cancer research group, The Children’s Oncology Group. In the next few weeks, I am going to be involved with event planning for Kick-It and am potentially going to organize my own kickball event.
I've read your other posts and this sounds like an awesome project. I am kind of curious, though - your first paragraph describes how some of the patients were smiling or enjoying the shoot while others were too weak to project happiness, so I was just wondering if Flashes of Hope is something that patients sign up for. Are most of the clients generally patients whose families are trying to get pictures of them, or are the patients themselves the ones who want the pictures? Basically what I'm asking is whether or not all of these patients want their pictures taken.
ReplyDeletePamphlets are given out to patients and their families a month prior to a shoot to explain what Flashes of Hope is, what the photo shoots entail, etc. If the patient and/or their family is interested, they sign up to get their pictures taken. I asked one of the ladies who I work with about your question cause I honestly didn't know the answer since I haven't been to a shoot yet to see the whole process firsthand, and she said that most of the time, the children who are photographed are really excited about it all and even dress up and bring their stuffed animals or pets or toys from home to be pictured with. I think that initially, it is the parents or guardians of the patient who make the decision to participate in the photo shoot. However, after going through a ton of the archived photos, I don't think I have ever seen a child who obviously looks like they were being forced to be photographed. Almost all of the pictures show the patient laughing and posing and having fun. For those patients that aren't smiling, I think it is unfortunately because of the pain they're in or their lack of energy that particular day. I hope that answers your question!
ReplyDelete