Tracy and Scott Higginbotham – 2024 Paige’s Butterfly Run
The grey, drizzly morning couldn’t dampen my mood as I reminisced to this past winter when a mother in the Golisano Children’s Hospital Cancer wing, told me her daughter had just received her first chemotherapy treatment when I entered her room to see if she wanted any toys or books. As the eight-year-old girl with a shaven head, looked sheepishly at me from under her blanket, I softly smiled at her hoping she felt my empathy. She ducked back underneath quickly.
Later that same morning, I was visiting another child and ended up in his room as he asked his doctor, “Why can’t anyone cure cancer?” I tried to be invisible as the doctor conversed with him. All I was there to do was bring him some games to play with and ginger ale. His mother thanked me as I quietly left.
These precious, yet difficult, real-life insights made running in Paige’s Butterfly Run, a must this year. I ran it in 2014 but haven’t been back, only donating money each year to the fundraiser. This year, having volunteered with children with cancer, I had to run. How hard was a 3.1-mile run in the drizzle to raise awareness and money for pediatric cancer?
After the run, my husband and I went to support the Uticuse Women’s Rugby “Ruck Cancer” Tournament where buying a t-shirt, raffle tickets, and food, went into a fund supporting a member in the rugby community dealing with cancer. The action took a small-time commitment, a short drive, and cash, to watch, buy, and think of how someone in need would be helped.
Tracy Chamberlain Higginbotham and the Uticuse Rugby Team 2023
When tragedy or illness strikes individuals, families, and communities, the best of its citizens generously help and support them. Many of the best-known non-profit organizations, locally and nationally, were started due to misfortune. But that misfortune combined with a vision, hope, action, and resources, can create positive ripple effects for generations to come, just like Paige’s Butterfly Run has raised over 5 million dollars since its inception.
Today’s Wednesday Wisdom hopefully motivates you to take a tragedy in your community, workplace connections, or personal life and turn it into one of those positive ripple effects. If you don’t have anything immediate that has occurred, maybe think about the type of change you want to help make out of personal passion or your corporate mission, and start something on your own; or start reaching out to non-profits in your area to see how to align with them and their efforts.
Sometimes the simplest way to create change is to get involved, show you care, and help in any small or big way to make a current or future difference. Life and business are about giving as much as we can when we can. Your heart will be full when you do.
Women TIES 