Livestrong Summit 2008

Hey Everyone!

For those of you who don't know, I applied and was accepted as a 2008 Lance Armstrong Foundation Summit delegate. This was a weekend gathering of 1000 people from across the United States, coming together to train, equip and learn how to make cancer a national priority. The theme of the weekend was, "Vote Yellow", encouraging us to really understand and be informed on where our politicians stand in the war against cancer. There was intense training on grassroots movements in the arena of advocacy, elections and fundraising. I learned so much and met so many amazing people through this experience. I saw leaders talk about both their personal battle with cancer, as well as cancer issues as a whole. The weekend was filled with passion, commitment and a sincere determination from every delegate to unite and make cancer a national priority.

The kick off to the event was Thursday night as we were introduced to the summit by Lance Armstrong. Keynote speaker was presidential candidate, John McCain. As cancer is a non-partisan issue, Barack Obama was also asked to attend but could not due to schedule conflict. It was a good speech and there was allotted time after for open discussion. The evening was packed full of energy and the Senator McCain promised to reverse the current trend of cutting funds in the NIH. Overall it was a great way to kick off the event.

Day one went right into the track training. The morning started off with former Surgeon General Dr. Richard Carmona. He gave a great speech on the state of current cancer legislature and legislature still awaiting  support and approval. We then broke into a 5 hour in depth training in the track of our choice. I chose to train under the advocacy track, learning how to be a better advocate for cancer at every level. We received training that ranged from patient advocacy at a one-on-one patient level, to patient advocating and lobbying on Capital Hill. We were taught how to use our resources to further our cause, and how to make the most out of both earned media and social networking. We were trained on proper messaging techniques as well. The day concluded with a message from Dr. Harold Freeman of the Ralph Lauren cancer center in Harlem. He was an amazing man and a very motivational speaker.

Day two started off with a wonderful speech from Ms. Stephanie Spielman. She spoke on the importance of support from family and spouse at the time of diagnosis, as well as the the tole that care taking can be on a support person. She was very down to earth and very humbled by her husbands decision to leave the NFL to care for her when she got sick. It was an amazing story. Her speech was followed by a 6 hour day of training, again in the grassroots advocacy track. That night we were all invited to the Zoo for our Livestrong dinner and Zoo night. That was a great opportunity to meet people and really learn more about them and how cancer has affected their life. It was a lot of fun!

And today, the conclusion of the event, was incredible. We had a panel discussion of doctors, including Dr. Sanjay Gupta of CNN, Dr. Bernadine Healy of US News & World report and Dr. E. Gordon Gee of The Ohio State University. It was a 3 hour discussion that would be way to long to recap in blog, but their insight into the political, ethical and medical aspects of cancer were amazing. These are incredibly talented and well educated people that I really learned a lot from. 

And last but NOT least, I had an opportunity to meet Lance Armstrong's mom, and was able to tell her a little about our story and give her 3 of Michaels CD's! She asked if she could give one to Lance and I was like..."Uh, Yeah!" It was an amazing weekend and a huge opportunity for me to learn what I can do in this fight against cancer.....because if you don't fight cancer....."you don't know Jack!" :o)