Actual dollars equal around $100,000, but in kind and other support is immeasurable.
When I heard back from one of my contacts at Akron Children’s Hospital who works with Giant Eagle, this was my favorite quote she said about their relationship. I imagine this is how ACH feels about all of their donors, too. The value of a dollar goes a lot farther when it can literally change, or help, someone’s life.
Marisa Manocchio- Kent State Student
One of the people I interview, Marisa Manocchio, is a Kent State student who was diagnosed with leukemia three years ago. Today, she is cancer free thanks to the staff and medical care Akron Children’s Hospital provided her with. Here’s my favorite quote from my interview with her:
“My treatment at ACH was wonderful! Being treated for Leukemia there was probably the easiest part of treatment. I know that if I was at an adult hospital instead of ACH I wouldn’t have had the same experience. All of my nurses and doctors were like family by the end. Everything was always personal and I never felt as if I was just a number, just a patient, or just an experiment. I had and still have a relationship with a lot of people in that hospital.”
Check out the link to see Marisa’s full story from the Giant Eagle Spotlight.
Patience is definitely a virtue. After all of the waiting to hear back from my interviewees, I heard back from two of the three late yesterday afternoon. I finally have some of the key answers I’ve been waiting for to add in to my research document and my video. Now, I’ll have to find some time to do those things.
I don’t know about anyone else, but I’m definitely feeling that end-of-the-semester stress starting to creep up. I have a bunch of papers, projects, and presentations to prepare for in the next few weeks… oh, and, in exactly one month from today, I’ll be a college graduate! So there’s also the stress of finding a full-time job once I graduate.
It’s time to chug through these next few weeks! I can’t wait to get this research document and video complete and give it to our contact at Akron Children’s Hospital!
I just had my phone conference with Professor Neiderman. She told me that I am one of the few who STILL haven’t heard back from my contact(s). I’m beginning to grow extremely frustrated, but am trying to stay as positive as I can. I’ve reached out to 3 people now in hopes that someone will respond to any of my questions I have about Giant Eagle. I was definitely hoping to have a more solid rough draft of my paper and video complete by this time; especially with the end of the semester quickly approaching and all of my class work loads are piling up, but alas, that is not the case. The rough draft of my paper is missing key information I need from my contact at Giant Eagle – same goes for my video.
I’m really hoping to get a response by the end of the week. If not, I’m not entirely sure where I will go from here. I’ve called/emailed all of my contacts multiple times now. I get that these people are “busy professionals” but I would think someone would have a few minutes to answer ten questions max… especially because they have had about a month to do so now.
Akron Children’s Hospital is constantly participating in fundraisers or putting on events to raise money for the hospital. One event Dr. Hord talked to use about on the tour was Dancing for the Kids. He told us he was preparing for the event and “getting his dance moves ready.” The event finally took place on October 25 and it was a huge success. They raised $82,000 for cancer patients. Dr. Hord was even given an award for fundraising the most money. He raised $7,722 through donations.
After planning and executing an event of my own just this past week, I know how much work, time and effort goes into putting on an event. I’m sure the hospital spent months planning this event, but they ended up having a great response from it. Based on the pictures, it looks like everyone had a great time doing it, and I am sure everyone is satisfied with the money that was raised.
For more information and pictures from this event, check out this article! http://inside.akronchildrens.org/2013/10/28/dancing-for-the-kids-raises-82000-photo-gallery/
This week has been exceptionally busy, as to be expected in week 11 of the semester. Amongst the chaos, I’ve been trying to get ahold of my Giant Eagle contact… still. However, my attempts have been unsuccessful.
I finally heard back from her, but unfortunately, she informed me the person I really need to talk to is out of her office for a few days. I’m definitely getting frustrated trying to get answers for my project. I have even email our professor multiple times in desperation for how to move forward with my research document and video. Luckily, Ms. Neiderman is understanding of the difficulties I am having getting ahold of my contact. She found someone else to try contacting. I just sent my new contact an email and I’m crossing my fingers I’ll hear back soon! I’m definitely ready to move forward with this project; playing the waiting game is getting old.
I hope all of you are having better luck than I am with this project!
After I submitted my final proposal, the Akron Children’s contact suggested I look into cause marketing, I’ve focused on researching that this week. I found a really good article with a lot of interesting facts about cause marketing. Here are some of the facts I learned.
All of these facts, and many others, can be found here http://www.causemarketingforum.com/site/c.bkLUKcOTLkK4E/b.6448131/. I am not surprised at these facts, but they are beneficial to note, especially for my research document. Giant Eagle asks for donations at the cash registers, but I’m not sure how well they promote when to donate and where to donate. I wonder if it would be more beneficial if they printed cheap rubber bracelets (like the Livestrong bracelets) to have at the cash registers, then when someone donates they would get something in return. Giant Eagle is not a brand someone can buy, which is why I wonder if giving away something with the donation could encourage more people to donate money.
I have been playing phone tag and email tag with my contact from Giant Eagle for weeks now. It’s definitely frustrating. The last I heard from my contact was October 29. I’m hoping she replies soon so I can move forward with my project. Without her answers to my interview questions, I won’t be able to write a good research document or make an informative video. One of the emails she sent she told me that Giant Eagle does not usually grant interviews, but she wanted to be able to help in some way. I’m still unsure of what that “some way” looks like, but hopefully I will get the answers I need soon!
Hope everyone else has been more successful than I have with getting his/her interviews done!
http://tatianadanger.kinja.com/childrens-hospital-performs-katy-perrys-roar-im-n-1449835890
Although this video is not about Akron Children’s Hospital, when I cam across it, it instantly reminded me of ACH. The Children’s Hospital at Dartmouth-Hitchcock made a video to Katy Perry’s song, ‘Roar.’ You can tell just from this video that the staff is fun, outgoing, dedicated, love the kids and loves what they do. That is exactly the vibe I got from the staff at ACH when I went on the tour. The Dartmouth-Hitchcock hospital looked really nice inside as well, and had a lot of the same features in it that I saw at ACH. I think it’s great that hospitals like Dartmouth-Hitchcock and ACH really make an effort to have fun with the kids and do whatever they can to take their minds off of their problems. The video is really touching and it made me thankful that children who have cancer and other illness are fortunate enough to have such great hospitals and caretakers to treat them in the US.
Through my research, I found stories on the Akron Children’s Hospital webpage called “Giant Eagle spotlight.” These posts were about children who had been treated at ACH. One I found particularly touching was the story of an 11-year-old boy named Jacob. At just nine months, he was diagnosed with a rare blood disorder, Diamond-Blackfan anemia. When he was diagnosed, he was not expected to live longer than one year. Now, he continues to get blood transfusions every month to survive.
I cannot even begin to grasp the strength that Jacob, and other patients at ACH have to go through the treatments and procedures they do in order to survive.
loriremaker 