Merry New Year!
Submitted by the stupid cancer blog
Well, here we are and 2009 is just 1 day away. Evidently the most wonderful time of the year is behind us and all we have to look forward to is the regular wonderful time of the year. I, for one, am just happy that I won’t be hearing “Feliz Navidad” played repeatedly in succession for 30 days straight for at least another 11 months.
Prospero Ano y Felicidad.
Anyway, let’s turn to our year end wrap-up…
We crunched the numbers and here’s what we came up with.
In 2008, the I’m Too Young For This! Cancer Foundation hosted upwards of 35 Stupid Cancer Happy Hours, we managed to add an additional 200 cancer centers to our affiliate resource network, we exhibited at 8 cancer events, held our first Stupid Cancer University event along with the 2nd Annual Stupid Cancer Gala NYC, the 2nd Annual Stupid Cancer Comedy Show and the 1st-ever OMG! Cancer Summit for Young Adults in NYC.
We hosted 48 broadcasts of The Stupid Cancer Show, added 15 new community chapters which now total 37, reached over 7,500 people in our Facebook Cause, reorganized our all-volunteer Army into the Young Adult Leadership Council, now governed by our all-volunteer Young Adult Leadership Cabinet, comprised of all young adult survivors. Best yet, we finally moved into our first official offices in the heart of downtown Manhattan and secured a $100,000 development sponsorship from Novartis Pharmaceuticals to help support development of the next version our website.
Even more, The Stupid Cancer Blog’s syndication and cross-promotion with resources like Wellsphere, Revolution Health and Feedburner have brought significant new traffic to our almost daily rantings. According to our Google Analytics, our website had nearly 200,000 unique visitors this year and that doesn’t include hits to our Blog or social media profiles like Facebook and MySpace.
Rounding out our impact, the SeventyK initiative was launched, that being the first ever young adult cancer patient bill of rights petition. Of course our membership with the LIVESTRONG Young Adult Alliance and official partnerships with myriad other young adult advocacy organizations has helped us put in motion some truly amazing planning objectives for 2009.
All in all, it was a year of incredible success, overwhelming growth and remarkable traction. I don’t think ever before has there been so much attention on the needs of the young adult community – but we still have much work to do. There are still many hurdles to jump.
So long as the establishment continues to tout how much progress we’re making in the purported war on Cancer, we must not forget that all those happy sounding statistics which give the general public a false sense of complacency do not reflect or apply to our generation.
Our voices must continue to be heard and we will never stop our commitment to giving voice to the underdogs, rabble rousing with the best of them, challenging the status quo and demanding both change and accountability from the big box cancer organizations to continue to demonstrate a blatant lack of concern for their need to play nice in the sandbox, not be such a dominating and territorial monopoly that, based on their own policies, refuses to play nice in the sandbox from the mom and pop organization on the ground who seem to do most of the legwork for them – even though they somehow seem to both take and receive all the credit.
Change is coming. Hell, change is here. We’re all a part of it right here and right now. You are witnessing history in the making by being a part of the young adult cancer movement. Stupid Cancer is changing the way people think and act toward cancer. This is far from the end. It is only the very beginning of the end of hypocrisy.
And never forget – remission is not a cure. Never was. Never will be. Create. Connect. Unite – and, most of all – get busy living.
Happy New Year!
– Matthew Zachary
