Students donated their hair at halftime during the Shoot for the Cure women's basketball game
On Jan. 17, McMaster Athletes Care hosted their Shoot for the Cure initiative aimed towards awareness and fundraising for breast cancer research.
The event comes as the 17th annual edition run by the national U Sports organization to raise money for the Canadian Cancer Society and additional related charities. Last year, collective efforts by U Sports and Canadian university sports teams and communities helped to bring in a total of $115,000.
The event comes as the 17th annual edition run by the national U Sports organization to raise money for the Canadian Cancer Society and additional related charities.
This season, the McMaster University women’s basketball team set up a fundraising page on the CCS website to donate pledges towards research for improving cancer treatments, prevention and support services.
On Jan. 17, the Marauders hosted the University of Guelph Gryphons in a match at Burrduge Gymnasium in Hamilton. During halftime of the women’s basketball game, volunteers received haircuts to help support the initiative.
During halftime of the women’s basketball game, volunteers received haircuts to help support the initiative.
Along with the haircuts, t-shirts were also sold for $15 by McMaster Athletes Care, with proceeds going towards the CCS.
The Shoot for the Cure event will run from Jan. 17 to 31. Donations can be made generally to the CCS or towards registered Shoot for the Cure participants and teams through their website. So far, the Nipissing University Lakers have raised the most money across participating universities, collecting $3,541.06 out of their $5,000 goal.
Per the CCS’ Impact page, donations will go towards funding cancer research, government and policy advocacy and developing a country-wide cancer support system.
Alex Moore-Gibson is raising money and awareness for breast cancer through her lifestyle brand
C/O Honey and Glow
When Alex Moore-Gibson opened Honey and Glow to sell her handmade and sustainable bath, body and home products seven years ago, it mainly served as an outlet to unleash her creative energy. Today, it has turned into something greater than just health and beauty. It encompasses messages of women empowerment, community and breast cancer awareness.
Growing up with problematic and sensitive skin, Moore-Gibson had trouble finding products that were both gentle and effective enough to meet her skin’s needs. To address this problem, she began making her own bath and body products using DIY kits her mother bought her. She continued this hobby all throughout high school and university.
After much encouragement from family and friends who received her handmade products as gifts, she opened Honey and Glow as a passion project aside from her regular day job as a teacher. She currently sells lip balm, sugar scrubs, loose-leaf teas and beeswax food wraps.
In 2019, Moore-Gibson temporarily closed the shop to welcome her second son. As Honey and Glow was growing rapidly, it became overwhelming to balance her day job and raise her two sons all the while maintaining Honey and Glow. During her break, at the age of 34, she was also diagnosed with Stage 3 breast cancer.
Last year, during the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic, she underwent a mastectomy and began chemotherapy and radiation. Although these were some of the most brutal and darkest times, once she regained her energy, she needed Honey and Glow to relieve her suppressed creative spirit and find new direction and purpose as she finished up her treatment journey.
“Once I got through the really dark days and I started to have more energy, I was finding that I had this real energy, creative energy building up inside of me and I didn’t really know how to use it, especially during a pandemic,” said Moore-Gibson.
Honey and Glow recently reopened and is currently offering curbside pick up, online orders and delivery.
Moore-Gibson also started to donate a portion of the sales to Rethink Breast Cancer, a Toronto-based foundation focused on empowering women and families living with and affected by breast cancer. The donation is used for breast cancer awareness programs and events, research, resources and community work.
Moore-Gibson chose Rethink Breast Cancer because the stories of other breast cancer patients, survivors and families shared by the foundation served as a source of inspiration and comfort during her most difficult times.
Integrating her personal story in her work for Honey and Glow became very important for Moore-Gibson. Sharing her breast cancer journey has allowed her to connect with customers and supporters at a deeper level and engage in conversations with others affected by breast cancer.
“Even something as simple as the amount of women that have reached out to me being like, “Today is such a dark day and seeing your face and seeing your hair in a headband is giving me hope” makes it feel so worth it. It makes me want to keep going,” explained Moore-Gibson.
However, sharing her story online wasn’t easy. It took much courage and trust to post her vulnerable side on the internet.
“I’ve always had a very private social media account . . . so I was worried about being vulnerable. But I would say the response has been nothing but supportive,” said Moore-Gibson. “Sharing my breast cancer story has given me even more courage to share more and be more involved and to just keep going.”
The brand has become more meaningful and healing in ways that she could have never imagined. Her favourite part of running and growing her business has been being empowered and inspired by other young female entrepreneurs and building new friendships. Her love for her local community of supporters and like-minded small business owners has led her to do many collaborations and giveaway events with local makers and artisans.
From seven years of running Honey and Glow, Moore-Gibson has learned to believe in herself and to take a chance. She encourages others who may be hesitant to pursue their dreams to take their leap of faith.
Mac Athletes Care raise over $5,400 for the Juravinski Cancer Center
Each year at McMaster University, many athletes from different sports around the school unite to strengthen the athletic charitable efforts with Mac Athletes Care.
This past week, their objective was to help promote awareness and fundraise for the Think Pink initiative — an annual project surrounding the battle against breast cancer.
Briana Da Silva, a field hockey player and member of Mac Athletes Care who has been active in the Think Pink initiative, spoke about the organization.
“The Think Pink campaign is all about raising funds and spreading awareness around breast cancer. In some way or another cancer has impacted all of us and it is beyond important for us to do what we can. Typically Think Pink would have a wide range of running events, from bake sales and raffles to spikeball tournaments and shoot for the cure,” said Da Silva.
The COVID-19 pandemic has cast difficult times on many during the pandemic. Many organizations inside and outside of McMaster had to undergo serious change in order to keep running successful operations.
In wake of the pandemic, the Think Pink initiative looks much different than in previous years. In-person event programming has become a well-known fixture of Think Pink week. However due to limitations brought by COVID-19, this had to change.
“Since we cannot fundraise or have in-person events, we had to switch everything completely virtual. This limited the options of events we could host and online engagement tends to be lower than in person,” added Da Silva.
“Since we cannot fundraise or have in-person events, we had to switch everything completely virtual. This limited the options of events we could host and online engagement tends to be lower than in person,” added Da Silva.
Megh Rathod, a men’s rugby player and active participant in the annual event, discussed some of the hardships the organization has undergone recently, with the pandemic being one of two tragic events to have happened to Mac Athletes Care.
“It’s been a challenge as well because we don’t really have a staff sponsor or supervisor this year. . . The second challenge is what can we do in terms of the initiative. Usually, we rely on people being able to spare a couple dollars at the David Braley Athletic Centre, but we realized that with COVID, money might be a bit more of a constraint and it would be more difficult to get one or two dollar donations through an online platform,” said Rathod.
As such, the Mac Athletes Care team realized that an information campaign was more suited for this year, given the initiative being run online.
“We built an awareness campaign. That was something that we didn’t really cover much in the past. This year we shifted information to be more when you should get screened, or who should be concerned, breast cancer and its prevalence and some statistics to inform individuals and begin that conversation. It was a new addition this year that we hope to carry forward . . . Last year we were really successful in raising $5,400, usually because we can really take advantage of DBAC and the facilities and the in-person traffic and we usually set up tables there over the week,” said Rathod.
As effective and important as awareness can be, the club understands the importance of raising funds to put towards the Juravinski Cancer Center and has continued to attempt fundraising.
“With things looking a little differently this year, we are selling masks and t-shirts through the campus store and the proceeds will go towards Juravinski Hospital and Cancer Centre Foundation. On our Instagram page, we have some neat infographics and there is also the virtual “shoot for the cure” happening as well,” said Da Silva.
Cancer is a hard fought battle that many have unfortunately lost to and although individual efforts might not be enough to cure the vicious disease, each contribution makes a difference, taking a step closer to the end goal.
The ongoing pandemic has made things more difficult for the Think Pink initiative, but Mac Athletes Care hasn’t given up and is ready to keep battling this together.
Photo by Cindy Cui / Photo Editor
Breast cancer awareness campaigns are common throughout many North American professional and collegiate sports. Joining the ranks of the National Football League, National Basketball Association, National Hockey League and National Collegiate Athletic Association, McMaster Athletes Cares hosts an annual Think Pink initiative. The student group is made up of current athletes and regularly participates in community service and fundraising initiatives within campus and the greater Hamilton community.
McMaster Athletes Care runs several campaigns during the year such as clothing drives, McMaster Children’s hospital visits, Boys and Girls Club of Hamilton and Think Pink, a week-long breast cancer awareness campaign. Highlights from last week’s events include a range of events, from raffle fundraisers giving away McMaster branded gear and exercise classes, to competitions like Spike Ball tournaments.
Think Pink, with support from the Royal Bank of Canada, aims to raise awareness while also raising funds for the Juravinski Cancer Centre and Bright Run, an annual non-competitive walk or run fundraiser supporting breast cancer research at the JCC.
By participating in charitable efforts, McMaster Athletes Cares has shown a soft side complementary to the competitive edge of McMaster athletics. This is a step in the right direction as McMaster’s athletes prioritize creating an impact both on and off the courts.
This grassroots effort was specifically chosen to financially support local causes. McMaster Athletes Care felt it would be more effective to donate to local institutions that would invest the funds back into the Hamilton community.
McMaster Athletes Care felt it would be more effective to donate to local institutions that would invest the funds back into the Hamilton community.
Claudia Continenza, a fifth year defenceman for the women’s soccer team and Think Pink organizer, noted that the group’s decision to support JCC and Bright Run was made to ensure that there was transparency regarding where funds are allocated.
Continenza’s vision for Think Pink goes further than just how the initiative went this year. She would like to see Think Pink include not only the promotion of breast cancer awareness and research but to support other causes, such as other types of cancer.
This past April, McMaster Athletics faced the realities of cancer when Joe Valvasori, the head coach of the women’s soccer team passed away following a long battle with stomach cancer. Following this loss, McMaster Athletes Care reflects on expanding on its initiatives and fundraising efforts to include other areas of cancer research to widen its support to the Hamilton community.
“I think actually one of my hopes, and it might not be the hope of whoever takes over for me next year, but one of my hopes would be that we can expand our horizons beyond just breast cancer research and awareness. Our former head coach Joe [Valvasori] passed from stomach cancer so it’s something that’s really close to our team and we’re putting all this into supporting breast cancer but any progress in cancer is great and a goal of mine is to expand this initiative past just breast cancer,” Continenza said.
In the experience of participating students and community members, Think Pink is a valuable initiative that creates an opportunity for athletes to actively engage in supporting healthcare and charitable causes in the Hamilton community. While breast cancer researcher remained a focus of this year’s Think Pink campaign, there’s interest in expanding the initiative in the coming year to reflect the evolving needs of our local community.
If you have been at McMaster over the last few years, you may have seen pictures of varsity athletes rocking pink tutus floating around on social media or at the front desk of the gym.
https://www.instagram.com/p/Bdxg5TcgkYt/
These photos are in promotion of the Mac Athletes Care breast cancer fundraiser. Every January, Mac athletes put together a number of activities in order to raise money for breast cancer research. Although we still have a few more months before the event kicks off, we went behind the scenes at one of the iconic photoshoots and caught up with rugby player, Ontario University Athletics Shiels Division Community Service Award winner, AND event coordinator Mackenzie Wiens to see what Mac Athlete Care has in store for Think Pink.
Mackenzie: We have always had great involvement from athletes! Leading up to the fundraiser [Jan. 7-12] athletes can sign up to volunteer at the Think Pink Table. This year we are trying to increase our social media presence to ultimately improve our online fundraising efforts. We have been able to meet with 16 teams and are so excited to have their support.
M: We will have our raffle table (where we are currently looking for donations) and t-shirt sales every day as well as at the varsity games. New this year is a spike ball tournament on Friday, Jan. 11, which will have a great prize for the winning team!
M: Last year, we raised $10,000. This may be bold, but were hoping to raise $15,000 this year!
It’s not enough to want to do good, at some point you have to do good! I’m so happy that this year, all the funds will be used to support and fund breast cancer research in Hamilton — by investigators who work at Hamilton Health Science Juravinski Cancer Center & McMaster University!
[spacer height="20px"]For more inquiries or if you would like to donate, email wiensm@mcmaster.ca. Also follow @mcmastersports to follow along with their fundraising efforts or to see some awesome photos of your favourite student-athletes rocking pink tutus for a good cause.
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