Brian’s Story
In December 2015, my Auntie Marla passed away from a rare form of kidney cancer. I had such a close relationship with her and her loss has greatly impacted my family.
For my 13th birthday, I wanted to do something to honor my Aunt’s life and also help those in need. I combined my love for her and the game of hockey, my favorite sport.
Could I collect hockey equipment and donate it to those who are less fortunate?
I decided to only focus on hockey sticks. I came up with a name, designed a logo, and “Stick Up to Cancer” was born.
The logo story
When I was thinking of a design for the logo, I wanted to make the hockey sticks facing upwards (Stick Up to Cancer),
unlike most hockey logos that have
the sticks facing downward.
I feel like it represents hope and trying to find out more information about this disease as well as reaching out to people and helping those in need.
My parents then gave me a challenge: for every used hockey stick I collected, they would donate $5 to the Marla Fund, which supported grants to improve Edgemont Schools, the district where my Aunt Marla taught first grade for over 20 years.
I started asking anyone we knew—do you have any old hockey sticks lying around? Friends and family really stepped up and to my surprise so many strangers came forward with used hockey sticks that they had in their garages, their attics, and in storage. Even after it was posted on social media, strangers left sticks outside their homes. My parents drove me to pick up all of all the donations.
The project also caught the attention of newspapers and radio and TV stations. I did interviews with News 12 Westchester TV, WCBS Newsradio 880, and many newspapers around the county.
Local ice hockey rinks setup collection bins and sticks came pouring in. The project really took off.
The hockey sticks were later distributed to Hockey in NJ, an organization that serves kids in Newark, New Jersey with donated hockey equipment. The players all benefited from this donations.
But this project is far from over.
I will continue to collect hockey sticks and help my fellow hockey players who are in need of equipment. However, I will now donate to cancer research to help fight this terrible disease. I don’t want anyone else to go through the pain that I went through of losing my Auntie.
Yankees outings with
Auntie Marla were always
a big favorite of mine!
