Love Your Melon is an organization that was started by two sophomores at University of St. Thomas in Saint Paul, Minnesota on October 22, 2012. Their mission is:
“Love Your Melon is an apparel brand dedicated to giving a hat to every child battling cancer in America as well as supporting nonprofit organizations who lead the fight against cancer.”
The two young college students started out with the pure intent to improve the lives of children battling cancer. They produced 400 hats, and with each hat bought, a hat was donated to an affected child. Two months after starting the organization, they made the first donation to children battling cancer and after seeing how happy the children were, they were inspired to continue their efforts.
In 2014, they took two coast-to-coast tours of colleges and began the Campus Crew program within 740 colleges, involving more than 11,000 students, to date. Once they had donated 45,000 hats, they set a goal to donate 1 million dollars to pediatric cancer research as well as support for families. As of today, Love Your Melon has donated over 75,000 hats to children and over 1.1 million dollars. With the success that has come with the organization, Love Your Melon has opened the door to supporting additional nonprofit partners. 50% of their net proceeds are donated to non-profits that battle pediatric cancer on the forefront such as, pediatric oncology, research funding, and immediate support to families.
Lily Fortunato started the Love Your Melon crew, at the University of Utah last year in 2015. There are currently 18 members who each post on their social media about it to spread the word to the Utah campus, since it is relatively new. By selling more hats, they have the ability to host more events for the children and gain more members. Love your Melon day just recently passed on October 20th, and the U of U Love Your Melon crew went to the Oncology floor of the Intermountain Primary Children’s Hospital on campus and did fun games and activities with the children, as well as providing a beanie for each child. The crew on Campus is working relentlessly to get their name out there and spread the good work that Love Your Melon is doing for children around the country. They will be tabling at events on campus and can be found on Instagram and Facebook.
Instagram: @uofulym
Facebook: University of Utah Love your Melon Campus Crew
Love Your Melon is a fantastic organization founded for a great cause, by students that are like all of us. Besides the beanies being fashionable, warm, and reasonably priced, each hat bought, is a hat donated to a child affected by cancer, along with 50% of the proceeds being donated to facilitating pediatric cancer research.
Go check out the website! https://www.loveyourmelon.com