Designing A Hopeful Community for Young Adults Fighting Cancer

On Monday, we celebrated an exciting milestone in our organization’s history. In addition to turning eleven years old and reflecting on many years of service to the young adult cancer community, this years event also marked the organizations renewed commitment to our local community – Howard County and the Mid-Atlantic Region. One year into implementing a five year strategic plan, the UCF has made a strategic decision to allocate the majority of its organizational resources towards programs and projects that impact the local community. By scaling back our involvement in several national initiatives and focusing on a few core programs impacting the Mid-Atlantic Region, the UCF believes it will make a more profound impact on the lives of the young adults and families it reaches. In addition, a more focused organization will enable the UCF to develop model programs that can be evaluated and replicated in other communities and institutions across the country.

Eleven was a huge success and paid tribute to five community partners that have helped us get to where we are and will continue to be instrumental in our future work at the community level. We honored the following groups and individuals for their outstanding commitment to the UCF and young adults fighting cancer; our Founders Award to HGTV’s Vern Yip, our Partner Award to Howard County General Hospital: A Member of Johns Hopkins Medicine, our Young Adult “Fight” Award to cancer survivor Holly Gannoe and her Cancer to 5K program, our Volunteer Award to Felix Scherzinger & Eden Stotsky for their work on Long After Cancer, our Hope Award to Dr. Kevin Cullen of University of Maryland Greenebaum Cancer Center.

The event also featured inspiring remarks HGTV host and UCF Founders Award recipient, Vern Yip, along with an advanced screening of an episode of Deserving Design which featured the story of young adult cancer survivor & UCF Scholarship recipient Christina Gavegnano.

Check out some exciting activities around Eleven – THE EVENT

Vern’s visit University of Maryland Greenebaum Cancer Center – http://www.umgcc.org/patient_info/ulman_nav.htm
Vern’s visit to Howard Community College – http://www.explorehoward.com/events-entertainment/16386/yip-finds-deserving-designs-hcc-event/

Brock Yetso
Executive Director