For UF biology junior Elizabeth Mackall, the Chomp Cancer Carnival on the Reitz Union North Lawn Thursday was about more than free pizza and cotton candy.
It was about her brother’s battle with non-Hodgkin lymphoma when he was 11 years old.
Although his cancer has been in remission for the past five years, Mackall felt a personal connection with the event, which aimed to inform people about pediatric cancer and drew a crowd of about 200 students throughout the day.
“Not everybody realizes that cancer happens to kids, and it’s really sad to see,” she said. “It’s really hard on the family.”
The Chomp Cancer Carnival was sponsored by Friends for Life of America, which raises money for children with cancer.
Dimple Patel, chairwoman of Friends for Life of America at UF, said she wanted to use the event to promote the club’s cause and recruit new members.
About 100 people signed up to be on the organization’s listserv, and the club spent about $1,000 to host the event, Patel said.
The carnival offered free haircuts by Reitz Union Hair Company stylist Stacy Orcutt, who was stationed at a booth near the club’s tent.
Orcutt, 24, said she was looking for someone with longer hair, preferably about 12 inches long, so she could donate the hair to Locks of Love, an organization that gives hairpieces to children suffering from long-term medical hair loss.
Between a bounce house and slide, statistics from the Children’s Cancer Fund of America were posted around the tent informing visitors of pediatric cancer’s prevalence.
One sign read that 46 children are diagnosed with cancer each day while another stated that one out of every 330 will develop cancer before age 20.
“A lot of people are affected by pediatric cancer, and compared to other cancers, not a lot of people know about it. So [we’re doing] whatever we can do to help fundraise and spread the word,” Patel said.
