News
September 23, 2020Ready, Set, Go… Lemonade was Made!
As a nonprofit serving local children with cancer, the whole year for BALLSFEST leads up to one fabulous summer day. A day in Saratoga State Park where a crowd of over 600 people gather to celebrate the amazing bravery and strength of Ballers. Ballers are children and teens who are currently undergoing or have recently completed treatment for cancer at The Melodies Center for Childhood Cancer at Albany Med. In a special ceremony, Ballers are brought up on stage in front of the crowd, seated in a throne, and their story is shared in a fun and uplifting way while the audience is taken on an emotional roller coaster of laughter and tears, leading up to the big reveal of a personalized gift or experience. It’s a day full of hope, community, and support for these families as they face the battle of their lives.
Enter COVID-19 in March of this year. Only months out from their annual signature event and BALLSFEST, like all other nonprofits, was forced to take a close look at the possibility, or more realistically, the impossibility of hosting events. With the tight restrictions on social gatherings, the BALLSFEST team had to make the difficult decision to cancel this summer’s event. “While life came to a screeching halt across the country, cancer did not. Families continued to receive childhood cancer diagnoses, children continued to have to venture into hospitals for treatments, and lives were thrown into even more chaos if possible. We immediately knew we had to come up with something so that we could offer some kind of support to these families,” said Executive Director Angie Silipigno. To be able to continue providing support to families across the country battling cancer, BALLSFEST decided to pivot in a completely new direction and travel into unchartered territory for them. With that, the first ever BALLSFEST Virtual 5K was born.
The BALLSFEST team went into overdrive creating a plan for this event, launched social media marketing, enlisted the help of a race registration platform, and dove in headfirst. With more than half of the team having no previous understanding of what a Virtual 5K even was when the idea was introduced by New York Executive Director, Angie Silipigno, it was a crash course in all things running, promoting, pricing, and gaining sponsorship support. An avid runner herself, Silipigno felt this event had some potential of raising money but would also serve as a way to show BALLSFEST’s ongoing dedication and care for their Ballers.
Fast forward to mid-September, scheduled to coincide with Childhood Cancer Awareness Month, and it was the big event weekend. With an affordable price point for entry and sponsorship packages, the response from the community was overwhelming. With a social media appeal to try to gain participant support across the country, the word spread and walkers and runners from 33 states, along with Canada, committed to the cause. Over the weekend of September 11-13th, 464 people laced up their sneakers and hit the pavement to support Ballers across the country. The tremendous support from east to west far exceeded the expectations of the BALLSFEST team and brought in over $33,000.
As nonprofits are forced to reflect on their previous fundraising efforts, be inventive, and dip their toe into new territory, there is a lot of concern over the outcomes and the continued ability to carry out missions. This rang true for BALLSFEST as well. “We were heartbroken to have to cancel our big summer event. There is nothing better than seeing those Ballers take the stage. My hope was that somehow through this Virtual 5K, our Ballers would still feel the tremendous love and support from the community as people shared their pictures. And as we saw the numbers keep creeping up, and more pictures posted, I think that happened. Through all of the unknowns, there was a necessity to think outside the box and step away from what has been proven to be tried and true. And with those forced pivots, some of the best ideas can be born. We were so thrilled with the outcome of this event that we plan to incorporate this Virtual 5K or some variation of it into our annual plan. What an awesome showing of support for these amazing kids!” Silipigno stated.
To learn more about the year-round programming and support offered to pediatric oncology patients and their families, visit www.ballsfest.org.
