With October being Breast Cancer Awareness month, this week’s Campus Celebrity is someone who has made many efforts to raise cancer awareness on campus. Sophomore Emily Watkins is involved in Colleges Against Cancer, which is how she became cochair of Relay For Life 2013. Emily is a sociology major, a member of the swim team and serves on the Student Athletic Advisory Committee.
Colleges Against Cancer (CAC) is a branch of the American Cancer Society and they put on many events on campus to raise awareness, in addition to their main event, Relay for Life. As a cancer survivor, Emily knows how important having these events on campus are. For Breast Cancer Awareness Month, you can find CAC tabling in the quad, selling t-shirts, and holding a blood drive on October 23rd. On November 1st, they will be hosting a Breast Cancer Vigil, to remind everyone that breast cancer does not happen just one month, and that we should be thinking about it year round. The CAC also hosts the Great American Smoke Out Day, which encourages people not to smoke for a day and hopefully realize that they could go even longer without it.
Emily believes everyone should be informed about cancer. While quad sitting the CAC will often have a fake breast with breast cancer in it, so that students can feel what it is like, therefore being able to better detect it in the future. She also shared many cancer facts with me, such that a third of cancer could be prevented by getting rid of tobacco use and another third could be prevented by healthy life choices. Another was that one in every 100 college students is a survivor. If you think about that, that means there are 20 survivors at college.
As cochair, Emily has already began planning for Relay, which is not until next semester. She had the opportunity to attend a Relay for Life Summit a few weeks ago, which is where all chairs in California come together. One of the most rewarding parts she said, “was speaking at it and being able to be the little light of hope for people; I had multiple people come up to me and cry and tell me their story. They understood what my parents went through, you can relate to people on a whole other level.” On campus last year, Oxy raised $45,000 and Emily hopes that we can raise over $50,000. Many people attend Relay without fundraising any money, which is the whole point of the event, so if those people raise a little this is definitely a reachable goal.
After Oxy, Emily plans to do something that will make a difference in other people’s lives. She chose Oxy because of its education minor, and even though it is no longer available, she is still considering working as a teacher, being a social worker for families with sick kids, or working for a cancer nonprofit.
Photo Source: Emily Watkins