Allison Cafe

Hello friends, it has been awhile since my last post – but with good reason! We are kicking off another Relay For Life season. As some of you might remember, I got involved with the American Cancer Society’s Relay For Life last year. I volunteered on the event planning committee for the FIRST Relay For Life in Clairemont CA. (read my recap of last year’s event here). Check out the brief video above from our media sponsor Firefly Films highlighting the 2009 event.

This year I have taken on the volunteer role of  Publicity and Community Awareness.  Please help me spread the word about this educational and important community event. Tell a friend about this event (use the share icons at the bottom of this post). Are you a Survivor? We want to celebrate you, please sign-up online to attend our event. Join or start a team today. Or sign-up to volunteer on our website, we have volunteer needs on every level. Interested in sponsoring our event? We need donations of materials and giveaways items, please contact me at relayforlife (at) allisonbaloglu (dot) com or contact us via the website.

Details:

Relay For Life Clairemont CA 2010

The Important Question Everyone Asks:

We don’t expect anyone to be at the event 24 hours! Even if you can make it for 1 hour to walk a few laps – we would LOVE it! Or if you don’t live in town and want to participate remotely, that’s awesome too!!

What is it?

Relay For Life is an American Cancer Society event, held to raise awareness, raise funds, celebrate survivors, and remember those we’ve lost to this disease. It is entertaining, educational, and honestly, a really fun time you will want to come back for the next year!

Relay For Life is also, as it eludes to in the name, a “Relay”. It is a 24-hour walk, where team members divy up the hours they walk the path. Teams also have their own “campsite,” and you can camp in the park overnight! There are also kids activities and various entertainment going on throughout the day on Saturday and Sunday morning.

Dollars & Cents:

Team Captains pay a small registration fee donation when they create their team online. But there is no charge for participants to join a team! We hope each team member will set a goal to raise $100, and we are planning a fundraisers prior to Relay to help you get there, if you so wish! However, there is no fundraising minimum requirement, Relay For Life is a FREE event and its primary purpose is bring the community together and educate them on cancer awareness and prevention information, while having fun of course! Anyone is welcome to attend the event, even if you just want to stop by and cheer us on!

The REASON:

Did you know that 1 in 2 people will be diagnosed with cancer in their lifetime? Think of you, and the most important person in your life. 1 in 2. We have had numerous family & friends diagnosed. I am committed to do my part to decrease this number! Won’t you join us?

Stones Into Schools

We met Dr. Greg last night! I was so excited to meet him, that my very patient husband and I waited in line for over an hour to have our copy of his new book signed. It was worth the wait! Our local bookstore, Warwicks, along with several other local groups organized an evening with the best selling author of Three Cups of Tea, Greg Mortenson. His latest book, Stones Into Schools, was released on December 1, 2009. After reading Three Cups of Tea this past summer, I was eager to read Greg’s new book. Stones Into Schools picks up where Three Cups of Tea left off in his journey to promote peace.

There are several things that I took away from the presentation and book signing event yesterday evening. First of all, hearing Greg speak and meeting him in person reinforced his message for me. Change is not created by addressing the negative, it is inspired by hope. And in this case, the hope for peace specifically.

Three Cups of Tea: One Man's Mission to Promote Peace . . . One School at a Time

He spoke specifically about the subtitle of his first book. And talked about why the subtitle reads “one man’s mission to promote peace…” and not “one man’s mission to fight terrorism…”. What I also appreciated about meeting Greg in person is that I got to fully experience his brand. Let me explain. If you have read the books you know that Greg is a modest and often quiet person. He is not one to place emphasis on the material things in life and he does not particularly take pleasure from the sales aspect of his profession. Hearing him speak last night I took note of his mannerisms and appearance. He was dressed nicely but he did not dress the part of a well polished business person in a well tailored suit. That just isn’t part of the Greg Mortenson brand. Nor should it be, after all this is a man who gives tirelessly and selflessly to a higher cause. His work has been so influential that his books are now required reading for many military personnel and he has even recently been nominated for a Noble Peace Prize.

Image from Three Cups of Tea, Greg reading to school children

But appearances aside, the biggest illustration of the Greg Mortenson brand is the smile that he is always wearing and his strong bond with children. At last night’s event there was a group of school children in the front row. The children had raised over $2,500 for Greg’s Pennies for Peace organization. You could tell by the way that he spoke to and involved the children in his presentation that he truly does draw strength and inspiration from working with kids.

I also appreciated his message that we all can make a difference in our communities, and that there has been a bigger movement in recent years to make our communities a better place. One such example that he gave was about an 11 year old boy from Florida who created a non-profit called The Little Red Wagon Foundation. He raised thousands dollars to bring awareness to the issue of homelessness among kids in his city. Next year he plans to walk across the country to raise a million dollars to bring awareness to the issue across the country. He sounds like a truly remarkable kid.

Me with Greg Mortenson in La Jolla

When I finally got to meet Greg at the book signing, it was well worth the wait. I shared with him that as someone from Montana, I also appreciated hearing about his time in Montana as well. Even though it was almost 10pm and the line was still hours long behind us, he took the time to shake our hands and make us feel important. I think that is the charm of Dr. Greg, he has a calmness to him and an ability to connect with people on a very basic level. And in these days where we are all rushing from place to place and communicating mostly in digital worlds, Dr. Greg reminds us of the importance to actually spend time with people in person and build relationships. Thanks Dr. Greg, for all that you do.

Oh, and my apologies to the Warwicks crew, we told them we wanted to have my husband take a non-posed picture of Greg signing my book for me (posed pictures were not allowed), and somehow it turned into a posed photo. My face turned so red, I felt like I was breaking the rules! Sorry Warwicks! But while we are on that note, I have to say that Susan McBeth and her team that helped organize last night’s event are owed a huge round of thank yous for a fantastic evening. Here are the links to buy the books from Warwicks, as of last night they still had some signed copies of the children’s book Listen to the Wind, you may want to contact them to see what signed copies they might have left:

Stones Into Schools (hardcover)

Three Cups of Tea (paperback)

Three Cups of Tea- Young Readers Version (paperback)

Listen to the Wind (children’s edition of Three Cups of Tea)

I always have my eye out for creative charitable promotions. And since I also have a sweet tooth for cupcakes, this one really got my attention!

What could be better than a delicious cupcake? Cupcakes for charity! And even better, since these cupcakes are imaginary, they have zero calories, no fat and no guilt!

The talented folks over at Operation NICE and Share Our Strength’s Great American Bake Sale have teamed up to create a bakeless bake sale to end child hunger. Take just a moment to visit the “bake sale” today.

A national campaign that mobilizes Americans to end childhood hunger by holding bake sales in their communities.

Interested in holding your own actual bake sale to support the cause? Good news, it’s easy as 1, 2, 3! Sign-up on their website here, and they will give you all the tools to help you get started. Or simply visit their site to learn more about childhood hunger, their charity, and how you can help.

One Man's Mission to Promote Peace...One School At A Time

I recently finished reading the non-fiction book, Three Cups of Tea, One Man’s Mission to Promote Peace…One School At A Time by Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin. The book came recommended to me by my Mom and Dad, who had just finished reading it. They both gave it a glowing review and I decided to give it a read.

Every now and then you come across a book that affects you in profound ways, Three Cups of Tea is no exception. The book chronicles Greg’s experiences in Pakistan and Afghanistan while trying to spread the opportunity of education to remote, and often secluded, villages. What I found amazing was that Greg didn’t start his journey by setting a large goal of building hundreds of schools throughout the region. In fact, the need for schools in these small villages came to him by accident.

After a failed attempt to climb K2, Greg stumbles into a remote, poor village in Pakistan. What he discovers there is (more…)

In celebration of Hayley’s 1 Year anniversary since her adoption, I thought I would share one my favorite commercials. The Pedigree Adoption Drive commercials really tug at your heart strings with the shots of sad little faces behind a fence at the pound, but this one makes you smile to see a very happy Oliver in his new home. Kind of like Miss Hayley.

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The 2009 Relay For Life of Clairemont event began on the morning of May 16th, 2009 with a very special Survivor’s reception. The local news team from KUSI News joined us for our Survivor reception and interviewed two survivors, Diana and Miguel, as well as myself, Allison Baloglu. A special thank you to Lena Lewis and the entire KUSI News team for covering our event. Without the aid of our media sponsors, we wouldn’t be able to get the word out about this wonderful event. Read my entire post about the event here.

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Wow, what a weekend we just had. My body is tired, but my heart is full. A very special and heart felt thank you to everyone who supported the 2009 Relay For Life of Clairemont, CA. The event this past weekend was the first year that the Relay For Life was held in Clairemont, and words cannot describe how well it went. This is the 25th anniversary of the American Cancer Society’s Relay For Life, the largest grassroots fund raising event in the world. There are over 5,000 Relays that take place across the globe. I am excited to say that our first year in Clairemont was a huge success, on many levels.

Let the 24 hours of walking begin!

Not only did we raise over $30,000, (yes that is right, this isn’t a typo, our little “baby” Relay raised an unbelievable amount of donations) we also gave a live demonstration of the power of the human spirit. We had over 140 participants, 15 teams, many wonderful volunteers, survivors, and caregivers, and a group of very generous sponsors; who all helped pull off one the most successful first year Relays that the American Cancer Society has ever seen. (more…)

I cannot say enough positive things about the power of public relations. Getting the word out about charity events in particular, can be difficult. So when the opportunity comes along to share newsworthy information about your event with the community through local media, take every measure you can to be a great interview and a good resource for your local reporters.

Today, the Relay For Life events in Chula Vista and Clairemont were featured on the NBC San Diego morning news show. Speaking in the piece are Toni Royal, Event Chairperson for the Relay For Life of Chula Vista, and myself, Allison Baloglu, Fight Back Chairperson for the Relay For Life of Clairemont. Also seen holding the banner is my husband, Stephen Baloglu, as well as 3 other Relay team members from the Chula Vista event planning committee. It didn’t show up in the online clip below, but we also got another few seconds of coverage as the local NBC morning show wrapped up at 6:57am and we waved good morning to the Today show.

Today our Relay For Life team held a wonderfully successful garage and bake sale. When our team captain asked for volunteers to bake, who do you think raised her hand and volunteered cupcakes? Me of course! I love excuses to make cupcakes, but today’s was extra sweet. One hundred percent of the amount donated today went to our Relay team’s fund raising efforts for the event next weekend.

Of course I wanted to come up with a cute topping. So I used the American Cancer Society’s colors to inspire the toppings. We used red, blue and purple sprinkles. And I placed a gummy Lifesaver candy on top of each cupcake, because that’s what we are fighting back to do, save lives.

Saving lives, one cupcake at a time

I’d like to say a very special “thank you” to everyone who supported our event today with donations. And also to Megan, who helped me bake cupcakes yesterday and whip up some yummy frosting. Click “more” to read the recipe. Enjoy! (more…)

Tobacco and Cancer, Source: The American Cancer Society

Each month we will highlight important information that each one of us can implement in our own lives to help in the fight against cancer. This month I feel compelled to talk about the dangers of tobacco, both for those that smoke and for those who know someone who smokes. Below is just a small excerpt of the information available from the American Cancer Society:

Smoking damages nearly every organ in the human body, is linked to at least 15 different cancers, and accounts for some 30% of all cancer deaths. And it costs billions of dollars each year. Yet one in five Americans still light up. If you or someone you love uses tobacco, here’s what you need to know about how tobacco kills, and how to get the help you need to quit. The American Cancer Society has a wealth information on the topic on their website here.

The 1982 United States Surgeon General’s report stated that”Cigarette smoking is the major single cause of cancer mortality (death) in the United States.” This statement is as true today as it was in 1982 (statistics). Smoking is responsible for nearly 1 in 5 deaths in the United States. Here are some more eye-opening facts: (more…)