Every year, an estimated 250,000+ new cases of cancer affect children under the age of 20 across the globe. That’s one of the shocking statistics that five senior public relations learned from their new campaign, “No One Fights Alone.” This team includes seniors Bailey Howell, Jessica Romano, Lisa Demytrk, Brittannia Gordon, and Brianna Bell.
Romano said, “Only four new treatments for childhood cancer have been FDA approved in the last 30 years.”
Seton Hall’s Public Relations Student Society of America (PRSSA) recently teamed up with the company With Purpose for “No One Fights Alone,” which runs from Feb. 15 to March 15.
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Photo via Instagram/@pirateswithpurpose[/caption]
With Purpose raises awareness and funds for childhood cancer as well as makes sure kids have access to safe and effective treatment options.
Howell said, “We wanted to create a tag line [No One Fights Alone] that would act as a message to children affected by the disease, to show them that there are so many people fighting with them.”
Students were selected to work on this campaign through the PRSSA Bateman Case Study Competition, a national competition for public relations students to create and work on real PR campaigns.
The members said that they want to raise awareness for this campaign within the Seton Hall and South Orange communities by organizing events with various Seton Hall groups like athletics and Greek organizations.
PRSSA recently made huge strides for the cause at the men’s basketball game vs. Villanova on Feb. 28. At the game, PRSSA members asked students and fans to take the pledge to end childhood cancer.
“[They] wrote their name on a card as well as any personal connection they have to childhood cancer and why they agree it should end,” Romano said. Additionally, signees were given gold ribbons to wear. Romano said the event was very successful and PRSSA received several pledges of various age and backgrounds.
Although this company may not be a Bateman client again, there is a good chance that they will be involved with PRSSA in the future.
Demytrk said the campaign taught her a lot about event planning. Additionally, she said she had “no idea how badly childhood cancer research needs support.” But from this campaign, she hopes to help support childhood cancer research organizations in the future.
Having a personal connection changed the experience too, according to Howell. She has a very close friend who is currently fighting leukemia, so this mission really hit home.
She added that cancer is unfortunately common in the world today, but that it has been fantastic learning more about childhood cancer from With Purpose. Raising awareness for this cause has certainly opened the eyes of these students and given them the opportunity to apply their skills. For Howell, “it has been exciting seeing everything come to life.”
Erika Szumel can be reached at erika.szumel@student.shu.edu.
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