Emilie Kempen

 

Meet this week’s campus celebrity, Emilie Kempen! She is the college ambassador for Mizzou’s Love Your Melon chapter, an organization that helps children battling cancer. She is a junior, pre-nursing student from St. Louis who transfered to Mizzou in January. Read more to find out about Emilie and Mizzou’s Love Your Melon chapter!

 

Her Campus Mizzou: So since I assume this is the Mizzou chapter of Love Your Melon, what exactly do you do for it, and what do you hope to accomplish with raising awareness on Love Your Melon around campus?

 

Emilie Kempen: I am a college ambassador for Love Your Melon. The organization has a “buy one, give one philosophy,” meaning that for every hat they sell, one is given to a child battling cancer. Each college ambassador has a team, mine is called Tigers for Hope and each team has a goal to sell at least 50 hats through Love Your Melon’s website. Every time someone buys anything from the website, they can enter the team name Tigers for Hope at checkout and then our team gets credit for the sale. Once we sell 50 hats, Love Your Melon will organize a hat giveaway event for the children battling cancer at the local hospital! Love Your Melon is truly an incredible organization that is making a difference and by raising awareness on campus, I hope to encourage others to support the cause. Ultimately, my goal is to sell 50 hats, so they can organize a hat giveaway event at the local hospital for the children battling cancer there — I know it would be an awesome event! 

 

HCM: What other activities are you involved in?

 

EK: On campus, I am a member of the Student Nurses Association and off campus I spend my time volunteering with Hospice Advantage and working. 

 

HCM: What made you want to get involved with Love your Melon? Do you have a personal connection to wanting to get involved with “Love your Melon”?

 

EK: I think that cancer is something that affects everyone in some way. My dad, as well as a close friend of mine, battled cancer and ever since those experiences, supporting those with cancer has been something I’m very passionate about and is a cause very close to my heart. I heard about Love Your Melon earlier this spring and immediately knew I wanted to get more involved somehow. What this organization does is so inspiring to me and they truly do make a difference. 

 

HCM: Will you be having any other types of events in the future for “Love your Melon” and if not, are there ways that other students on campus could get involved?

 

EK: I had an event on campus on Oct. 22 (official Love Your Melon Day) that was devoted to spreading the word about Love Your Melon and what the organization is about. It went very well and there have been multiple people who have contacted me asking about more ways to get involved, which is so awesome! Since there have been more people wanting to get involved, my hope is to eventually start something on campus that is devoted to spreading the word about Love Your Melon and selling hats, but also dedicates some additional time to raising awareness about cancer and supporting those who are battling cancer or who have battled cancer in our community. I am so excited about everyone who has reached out to me and are passionate about this cause — I hope that we can work together to spread the word about Love Your Melon while making a difference in our own community. Currently, I’m working on organizing a team that can help me spread the word about the organization and continuing to reach our goal of at least 50 hats (we are almost there!). Other ways people can get involved are by spreading the word and ordering something from the website (make sure to enter Tigers for Hope under team name!) and if anyone is interested in being a part of my team, please feel free to contact me — I would love to hear from you!