BRICKS for Young Adults receives Sprout Fund Seed Award

It is with great enthusiasm that I can announce that BRICKS for Young Adults has been named a recipient of a 2009 Sprout Fund Seed Award. What is this, you ask. Why is this a big deal? WELL. Its huge. The Sprout Fund provides "seed" money for organizations and individuals with ideas for community-based initiatives that engage young people in the region. For BRICKS, this refers to the cancer stories/awareness/resource booklet we are developing. With funding from the Sprout Fund, we will be able to proceed with booklet production, meaningful distribution, and outreach. Most importantly, we will be able to put this booklet in the hands of young adults in western Pennsylvania FREE OF CHARGE to them.


About the Sprout Fund:

The Sprout Fund enriches the Pittsburgh region’s vitality by engaging citizens, amplifying voices, supporting creativity and innovation, and cultivating connected communities. Founded in 2001, Sprout facilitates community-led solutions to regional challenges and supports efforts to create a thriving, progressive, and culturally diverse region. With strong working relationships to many community organizations and regional stakeholders, The Sprout Fund is one of Southwestern Pennsylvania’s leading agencies on issues related to civic engagement, talent attraction and retention, public art, and catalytic small-scale funding. With ongoing local support and continued appreciation by the communities it serves, The Sprout Fund will continue to catalyze creative solutions to pressing challenges, engage people in community conversations, respond to the needs of its target audiences, open doors to civic participation, and promote responsible stewardship of community interests.

For more information about the Sprout Fund, and what they do, please visit their website

More details about our project are coming soon, so please stay tuned. This was the good stuff I referred to in an earlier post, its here! Im so excited that the many, many hours I put into the grant proposal paid off. Many thanks to the people who looked over the proposal for me, gave input and support, and for everyone involved in the booklet project. This award will TRULY help seed something wonderful.

There is so much work to do....

In trying to organize my thoughts about what it is I hope to accomplish, I realize that there is far more need than I can address on my own. Luckily, I have had the good fortune of meeting some real experts in various areas of young adult cancer, health care advocacy and good old fashioned DIY getting things done.

My first goal, albeit an ambitious one, is to assemble and print a resource guide for young adults diagnosed with cancer. My hope is that it can be something doctors give their patients early on, that helps connect young adults to resources both online and in our community. Rick and I spent hours trying to piece it together- if our work can save someone else some time and energy, I would be elated.

This project is HUGELY inspired by the amazing work of my friend Jude and the Be Well! zine. In a moment of absolute crisis we turned to the Be Well! and found a program to help us get some of Rick's medication for free- a program even his oncology nurse didnt know about. I am forever grateful to Jude and her hard work, determination, and passion for helping the uninsured.

In addition to providing information on living with cancer, I want to be sure to address the possibility of dying from it. It seems that there is so much fear to talk about end of life issues, but I know first hand how important it can be to talk about while you're well enough to make your own decisions about it. I know that everyone wants to stay optimistic and cheer for recovery, but dying is an inevitable part of living, and one that I think a lot of young adults need help thinking about and planning for.

Of course I have lots of other lofty goals (wouldnt it be great if I could quit my job and focus on ONLY this?) but I'll save them for the future. If you would like to volunteer to help with the resource guide in any way, please let me know.