Friday, April 12, 2013

"Tony's Tigers": Please Support the Relay for Life Team in Honor of Dr. Anthony Ellis

Though I know that some of you are already aware of the Relay for Life event that Tony’s friend Sarah Warner has organized on his behalf, I am writing to enlist your help in spreading the word about this event and about the life-saving work that is being done by the American Cancer Society to help patients like Tony win their battles with this devastating disease. 

Sarah’s Relay for Life event is scheduled to take place the weekend of June 22nd and 23rd at the Berrien County Fairgrounds.  In honor of her friendship with Tony, she is calling her team “Tony’s Tigers” and has created a personal event page on the ACS website that provides additional information about the event as well as opportunities, for those who wish to support Tony, to make a donation in his name, to offer words of encouragement to her and her team as they prepare to walk on his behalf, and to become directly involved in the event as walkers themselves if they are interested.

While a number of your colleagues and graduate students within the department have already made donations to Sarah’s event via the posts that have been circulating on Facebook this past week, I am writing to ask if you would each be willing, through your various roles within the department and the university, to help publicize this event further—through emails to your colleagues and the graduate and undergraduate students whom you supervise, through posts on the department blogs and webpages that you oversee, as well as by word of mouth.  Our hope is that, in addition to showing  Tony just how much he is missed and how much we are all rooting for him, we will also be able to make a significant financial contribution in his honor to the American Cancer Society by the time that Sarah’s event takes place. 

I am attaching a link to Sarah’s event page here, which you are welcome to share with everyone you think might be interested (http://main.acsevents.org/site/TR?fr_id=50168&pg=personal&px=32219059), and encourage you to contact her at snw.warner@gmail.com if you have any questions about the donation process or about getting involved yourself.

I spoke with Tony yesterday to make sure that Sarah and I had his blessing before we contacted anyone on campus, and he was very touched and encouraged us to publicize the event as much as we were able, since it is for such a worthy cause.  So Sarah and I would be tremendously grateful if you would help us to do this in any of the ways that I am suggesting here.  And we would also be delighted to hear whatever suggestions you might have about ways that we could publicize Sarah's event further, since we really want to generate as much good press for the American Cancer Society as we are able, as well as to encourage the biggest donation possible in support of our friend Tony!

With many thanks and all best wishes,

Chris Triezenberg

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