Love Your Melon Campaign
Zach Quinn and Brian Keller, each fully dressed in their Superman costume, stand outside another patient’s door grasping a small cotton hat. They each take a deep breath and walk into a room of a child undergoing intense cancer treatment. The duo has been visiting children’s hospitals throughout the country with one mission: to improve the lives of children battling cancer. In order to do so, Quinn and Keller created Love Your Melon, a non-profit organization that funds research for childhood cancer initiatives. For three years, the Love Your Melon organization has been seeking out children all over the country and delivering a hat to every child battling cancer. But they do not only drop off a hat and leave – the Love Your Melon team dresses up in Superman costumes, play games with them and meet their families. Although Love Your Melon’s long term goal is to raise money for pediatric cancer research, they also work to bring smiles to children’s faces all over America.
The Beginning
Love Your Melon began in 2012 at the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, Minnesota. The co-founders’ entrepreneurship class required a semester-long project in which each group had to create and market a brand. However, Quinn and Keller’s mission didn’t end with the conclusion of the semester; their love for helping others led them to continue creating. From the simple concept of loving whatever is on your head- the idea behind Love Your Melon was born.
Why hats?
The hats serve both symbolic and practical meanings. Children undergoing intense chemotherapy experience hair loss and the beanies work to warm the head of each child in a hospital bed. Additionally, the caps and beanies serve as a way to embrace your whatever is on top of your head.
The Goal
The small hats given to children are making a sizeable impact. In 2014, the Love Your Melon members set off on the first of two nationwide tours in their goal to visit children’s hospitals on the East Coast, West Coast and in between. Love Your Melon has already reached their first goal of selling enough hats to give one to every American child battling cancer. Instead of stopping there, the team has set a new goal: to fund cancer research by donating one million dollars by the end of 2015. Selling hats has allowed the organization to already donate 100,000 to families and research, however the rest of 900,000 to meet their goal is dependent on the public.
Your Part
To help- the first thing you can do is to buy a hat and continue to financially support the efforts of Love Your Melon. Additionally, you can spread awareness on the brand and get others to check out their website and Facebook pages. But Love Your Melon has made it easy for college students to get involved too- they created the Love Your Melon Campus Ambassador. Campus Ambassador’s are college students who spread the Melon’s mission across universities, promote donations and plan campus events.
You can check out all the Love Your Melon products and events at their website, http://loveyourmelon.com/. And keep an eye out for the brand!