Six Flags Over Georgia jumped on as our first sponsor. That April, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution ran an article about the project, and within a week, readership had flooded my mailbox with donations – from a $5 bill a 10-year-old gave from his allowance (his mom matched) to a $10,000 check from an anonymous law partner. One woman organized a tennis tournament to raise money, and one man laminated the article so I could have a keepsake. All in all, Atlantans donated about $60,000 and about 400 different stories of compassion and belief in our newly uncertain post-9/11 world. The Children’s Wish Foundation sponsored, and CURE Childhood Cancer stepped in as an umbrella.
In May, I went back to the friends and classmates that had shared tokens of support or showed simple, unfiltered friendship while I had been sick. I asked them to help me host this weekend I was planning for teens with cancer. Their sole purpose was to make sure the guests were comfortable and having fun. The adults involved told me later that they thought this was just an excuse to bring my friends to the party – until they heard the feedback.
RCD Atlanta 2002 consisted of a private Mark Wills concert, with opener Lucky, and cookout, VIP access at Six Flags, limousines everywhere, lots of gifts, and the magic unstructured time that led to made up games and “how much gum can we eat” contests late into the nights. Thirty-six new friends from GA, NC, SC, and TN came to the event. I thought I was planning a weekend escape. They told me it was more.
One guest from TN had never left the state until she had cancer. It was her first time in a hotel, a limousine, to a theme park, to Georgia. I couldn’t believe her only “unique” life experiences until RCD centered directly on cancer. Secondly, much of the guest feedback reflected gratitude in the chance to feel “normal.” I had been shooting for “special,” but the value of feeling normal – without walls – jarred me. Finally, and adding to that piece, the adults who questioned the teens hosting, doubled back – noticing that when the hosts and guests interacted, it was hard to tell who was “healthy” or “sick.” Instead of having more babysitters or schedule keepers, our guests got to just relax with friends. We filled a new niche, and I couldn’t imagine ever leaving that hole unfilled again.
CURE kept RCD as its own program for three years, and they allowed me the freedom to plan and executed however I wanted. My friends continued hosting and molding the event with their own beautiful, impressive fingerprints, and we started passing our hosting to our siblings and their friends. Over Christmas break of my freshman year of college, my cancer came back in my lung. I dropped completely out of school to manage the daily treatments. I lost 30-40 pounds. And I couldn’t imagine a world where my cancer didn’t keep coming back. I poured what energy I did have into making RCD 2004 the best I could imagine – from writing guests to formally training the hosts to planning for every detail. After the event, I turned to creating a company that could stand without me and grow beyond Georgia. On July 15, 2004, Heart of Passion was born – named for the fire I felt for the work and the vision for the program to be a national platform for people to pursue their passion in aid of others.Six Flags Over Georgia jumped on as our first sponsor. That April, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution ran an article about the project, and within a week, readership had flooded my mailbox with donations – from a $5 bill a 10-year-old gave from his allowance (his mom matched) to a $10,000 check from an anonymous law partner. One woman organized a tennis tournament to raise money, and one man laminated the article so I could have a keepsake. All in all, Atlantans donated about $60,000 and about 400 different stories of compassion and belief in our newly uncertain post-9/11 world. The Children’s Wish Foundation sponsored, and CURE Childhood Cancer stepped in as an umbrella.