This leadership project was done by Taylor Metz and Allie Defazio. For our project we decided to raise money to donate to The American Brain Tumor Association. We chose to donate to this cause because we can relate to it. Our former assistant coach, Ashley Cingly, passed away from a brain tumor about 2 years ago. When we found out we had to do a community service project, this was the first thing that came to mind.
Ashley was only our soccer coach for a short time before she passed, but she left a huge impact on my team. She taught us to play everyday like it could be your last. Because it very well could be. It was really fun doing this project, because I knew we were raising money for a great cause. Thousands and thousands of people suffer from brain tumors so we were happy knowing we could be a part of donating to the American Brain Tumor Association.
Coming up with an idea to raise money and awareness for brain tumors was not easy. Taylor and I had several ideas but none were working out the way we wanted it to. After giving this project a lot of thought we had come up with the idea of doing a Raffle.We charged one dollar for one raffle ticket and asked them to write there name, phone number, and the basket number they wanted .We set up at the farmers market in Downtown Pleasanton, we thought this would be a smart place cause tons of people go there every Saturday. We set up a little booth with posters and 3 baskets. Everytime a person would come by we would chant are little logo we had come up with “come on over, great prizes and great cause.” We attracted tons of family’s! Some would ask why are we standing in the freezing cold doing this and we would tell them our story and how its good to raise awareness and the people were only more touched. In all Taylor and I had raised 161 dollars in just 2 hours we are so grateful to be surrounded by such loving people .
Taylor and I may have not known Ashley as well as others but her inspirational story has made us thrive to become better people. Speaking of Ashley to others made Taylor and I ponder about how thankful we our for to have the lives that we have. A elderly women had stopped by our table and stood there we had said the raffle is over but if you want to donate you can she just stood there for a sec and told us about how she had just found a brain tumor on Christmas Eve. Taylor and i were shocked to hear about this and talked to the women for a little and told her how you can only hope for the best we gave her hugs and she had carried on with her walk downtown. From that moment on Taylor’s life and mine had changed just a little, because it showed us that how people around you can be going through the same thing as you and you may not even know. Doing this project and raising this awareness made not only Taylor and I but those around us open there eyes.
