Our Favorite Team LIVESTRONG Memories

LIVESTRONG Foundation staffers do more than just work in the office from 9-5. This is not the kind of place where you clock in and out. Our staff members live and breathe the mission and they even fundraise and participate alongside you at events.

It is difficult to express just how moving and fun these events can be for all involved unless you have actually participated. This week, we put out a request to staff to share their favorite Team LIVESTRONG memory. We got some really great replies! We hope you’ll share your favorite memories below and bring along a friend to join you this year.

Thank you all for making these events so meaningful (and such a blast) and for helping us raise the funds necessary to help people affected by cancer now.

Robert Ramos  
Grassroots Event: Huck Cancer

Huck Cancer was my first time to play Ultimate Frisbee & I participated in a tournament filled with experienced players from club teams. I was blown away by how kind, patient, and accepting everyone was, which speaks to the culture of the sport. All 80+ players raised money for LIVESTRONG and the event has raised close to $20,000. The community this sport has built should serve as the model of how the world should be. It gives me hope on so many different levels. My takeaway from this past week is don’t be afraid to push yourself beyond your comfort zone. That’s where life truly begins.

Callie Atkins
Community Fundraiser

My first experience with Team LIVESTRONG was as a community fundraiser in 2008. A service club from my high school put together a fundraiser to honor the memory of a classmate we had lost to cancer. Our goal was not only to raise funds for LIVESTRONG and a memorial scholarship in her name, but also to ride our bikes from Tennessee to LIVESTRONG HQ in Austin. It was a 7 day ride and 1,200 mile challenge, tribute, and fundraiser all wrapped into one.

On the final day of our ride, LIVESTRONG staff met us about 40 miles outside of Austin in Bastrop, TX, and escorted us into downtown Austin and LIVESTRONG HQ. During those 40ish miles I had the chance to learn so much more about LIVESTRONG’s mission, commitment to cancer survivors and their families, and staff. Once at HQ, the energy was contagious.  You could feel the purpose of LIVESTRONG and knew that the organization was making a difference in people’s lives. Bottom line: I was physically exhausted, but more motivated than ever to continue to help individual’s facing cancer.

That experience led me to Team LIVESTRONG and has given me the opportunity to see how our events not only support our programs and services, but give people a hope, a community, and a place to challenge themselves.

Kim Barnett
Event: RAGBRAI

I remember the time when I got to experience RAGBRAI for the first time. It was 2008 and I got be one of six Team LIVESTRONG staff members to help support the participants and ride my bike across Iowa. I had always wanted to do RAGBRAI since 2003; I had heard about it when I worked at a local bike shop, Bicycle Sport Shop.

Each day was a big fun party. Wake up, put on cycling clothes, ride your bike through tiny towns. Eat fresh made pies and treats from grandmothers from a church, ice cream by the Amish, and pasta made from a group called the Pastafarians. So many food trucks followed the RAGBRAI caravans/buses to each of the overnight host town. They served walking tacos made with emu or beef, burritos, lamb gyros, Tom’s turkey sandwiches, smoothies, and the ubiquitous pork chop on a stick from Mr. Pork Chop. It really was like traveling with a carnival.

Each night; however, ended with a “fireside chat”. Someone would get up and share why they decided to fundraise and how they were affected by cancer. There were survivors, people who had lost loved ones and people still in the fight! After the craziness that is a day a RAGBRAI, these chats were a solid reminder of why we were all there – to support each other and help people affected by cancer.