ROXANNE PENA
Contributing Writer
Hats Off For Cancer, started by Pepperdine alumna and Executive Director Tara Lawrence, has collected more than 650,000 brand-new hats over the past 10 years and distributed them to children with cancer.
It all started in 1992, when her grandfather passed away from prostate cancer. Lawrence began volunteering with the American Cancer Society, and met many children who hated how they lost their hair due to chemotherapy.
In 1996, at the age of 14 Lawrence began writing letters to different companies asking for hat donations. Her initial goal was 1,000 hats, which were donated from one company three months into her campaign.
Hats Off For Cancer continued to grow quickly, and collected more than 20,000 hats the first year. During the early years, Lawrence put in two to three hours a day and even more on the weekends. Lawrence has since received multiple awards for her efforts, and Hats Off For Cancer gained national media attention.
Lawrence was recently one of five finalists in the Voices campaign from “The Montel Williams Show” and was given $20,000 for Hats Off For Cancer. She then received the most votes of the five finalists from the audience and won a 2007 Hyundai Entourage.
She said the money will go toward buying a storage unit so the hats don’t flood her apartment. The larger car means fewer trips while transporting the hats.
“I’ve always been very involved,” Lawrence said when asked about how she managed her time.
At Pepperdine, Lawrence participated in Newswaves, Alpha Phi, being an RA for three years, SJA representative and writing for the Graphic.
She stayed involved in her charity work even during her year overseas. Lawrence collected hats, then went to hospitals in London and Ireland to give them to the kids.
Virginia Groves, Pepperdine alumna of 2004, met Lawrence while overseas in London. Groves became involved with Hats Off For Cancer about a year ago, when she was appointed to the board of directors.
Groves does “whatever needs to be done,” which recently included an e-mail campaign to get votes for Lawrence on the Montel show. The focus is on getting awareness out, whereas Lawrence does the most work of collecting donations and sending them out.
“There’s a lot of room to grow, which is exciting to be part of that,” Groves said. “You get to see the effect you have; it’s an immediate thing.”
Lawrence’s family has helped a lot as well.
Her younger brother Dennis, a sophomore at Pepperdine, began 10 years ago as “the box boy.” He would help move the many boxes full of hats stored in the garage. “He’s the muscles of the group,” Lawrence said.
Dennis is now the National Hat Drive Coordinator and directs those who hold hat drives where to send the collected hats. He said he most enjoys meeting the kids who receive the hats and seeing their smiles.
Lawrence has big plans for Hats Off For Cancer. She recently started training for the L.A. Marathon, which takes place March 4, and hopes to raise money and awareness of the organization.
Lawrence said she’d never done anything similar to the marathon before. “I like to challenge myself a lot,” she said.
Two books are also in development. The first will be a compilation of stories and drawings from survivors of cancer. The second will be a resource for teachers to read to students if one of their classmates is diagnosed.
“It’s hard for kids to accept and understand that being different is OK,” Lawrence said. The book will educate the children to what exactly is going on. They are currently looking for an oncology expert to help with the technical aspects.
Another goal is to fund their own camp for children with cancer and their siblings, which would be fully staffed with doctors and nurses. Lawrence feels it’s important for their siblings to be involved, because “a lot of the time they kind of get pushed to the side.”
“There’s so many places I can see the program being taken.”
She hopes to eventually make Hats Off For Cancer a full time job, which she admits is “pretty far down the road.” Until then, she plans to get her doctorate degree in American Studies and History, and then teach at a university.
Anyone who would like to become involved and help out can visit hatsoffforcancer.org for more information.
01-25-2007
