Meet this week’s Campus Profile Emily Norman, who is the Crew Captain of Love Your Melon here at the University of Wisconsin- Milwaukee! She’s a junior studying Nursing who helped the UWM Crew reach over 1,000 hats sold over the past five months.
What are your hobbies outside of Love Your Melon?
I’m an avid runner and have participated in many 5Ks, half marathons and full marathons. I recently completed my first full marathon at Disney World in Florida! I also have my own Etsy shop where I create and sell string art. I also nanny for a couple families here in the Milwaukee area.
Tell me about Love Your Melon and your position?
Love Your Melon is an apparel brand run by college students across the nation. Our mission is to put a hat on every child battling cancer in America. As well as supporting our non-profit partners on the fight against pediatric cancer. Some of our partners include the Pinky Swear Foundation, Cure Search, St. Judes Children’s Research Hospital and Alex’s Lemonade Stand. Love Your Melon was started in 2012 by Zachary Quinn and Brian Keller at the University of St. Thomas in Minnesota. It started off as a class project where they were told to come up with a business where they could sell something as if it was a lemonade stand. Zach and Brian set out to create a business and find a way to give back to the community. Love Your Melon was born! Love Your Melon started as a buy-one, give-one program where you would buy a hat and then a hat was donated to a child battling cancer. After successfully donating a hat to every child battling cancer, Love Your Melon has set out on a new goal to donate $1,000,000 to pediatric cancer research!
What does the role as “Crew Captain” entail?
As a crew captain, I do a lot of the behind the scenes work. Some of my duties include, creating meeting agendas, run meetings for the campus crew of 25 students and our volunteer team which currently has 300+ students! I also plan super hero adventures, donation events with the Children’s hospital and the Ronald McDonald House.
How did you get involved with Love Your Melon?
A friend of mine had an internship with Love Your Melon and took part in the West Coast tour in the summer of 2014. I followed the story through social media as they visited 18 cities and donated over 1,200 beanies to children battling cancer. The team also sold over 1,000 beanies to college students all over the West Coast which helped give way to the campus crew program! I immediately joined the crew at Marquette while I was a student there my freshman year. When my Sophomore year came around, I transferred to UWM and started a crew up!
Tell me about your crew’s recent accomplishment?
We recently reach the 1,000 credit level! Which basically means that for every hat purchased at loveyourmelon.com, credited to UWM at check-out, we receive one credit. As a crew, it is important for us to reach credit goals in order to go on donation events, super hero adventures and to meet the children we are on this mission for! With the 1,000 credit level, we will get to plan a super hero adventure where we focus our efforts on one child battling cancer. Typically, when we are on donation events, we are with multiple kids at once and the super hero adventure allows us to customize events for one special kiddo. We surprise them with an exciting day of plain old fun to help take their mind off of treatment.
What is the future look like for LYM at UWM?
Since I’ve been the Crew Captain for three years, I’d like to stay the Crew Captain as long as I can! I really hope that our crew continues to grow and becomes more well-known on campus. In the past three years, we have really come far so I’d like to keep pushing. It would be really cool to be known by the surrounding areas and become established within the pediatric cancer community.
How can students get involved?
If students are interested, everyone is welcomed! Please email our secretary, Jenn Kordik at jlkordik@uwm.edu, if you’re interested in joining our volunteer team! If you’re not interested in volunteering, you can still help the cause by going to loveyourmelon.com and purchasing gear! Make sure to credit UW-Milwaukee at check-out! Everyone can follow our journey on Instagram (@uwmlymcrew), Facebook (@uwmilwaukeeloveyourmelon) and Twitter (@uwmlymcrew)!