Next Gen is a student organization on UofM’s campus. Our mission statement is through campus involvement, Next Gen will work to raise awareness and educate people on the University of Michigan’s campus about ovarian cancer. This year we hosted our second annual Ovary Fun Night. This is an awareness gala we host each year. During the event, we teach people about ovarian cancer, have ovarian cancer survivors tell their stories, we have the GMen perform, and we have auction off items. This is a time for people to come together and learn about such an important cause. This year we were able to earn more money as well as reach more people than last year, which is our number one goal.
This year we faced less challenges than last year. It was nice to have to a foundation from last year to grow and improve from. The only challenge I can think of that we faced is before the event we did not have as many people signed up as we had hoped. However, we reached out the day of the event and told them it was not too late to register. This doubled our attendance. It taught us never to give up on recruiting people. It also showed us that our crowd might be more last minute people so we should continue to remind them of the event and tell them to come in the future.
We are very grateful to the Barger Leadership Institute and for the help they gave us. We plan to continue working hard to spread awareness about ovarian cancer throughout our time at the University and will pass the organization on to others when we leave. This event allowed us to spread awareness, which is a critical part of our mission. We are excited to see what the future holds and are hoping to partner with the BLI again.
By: Barbara Dahlmann
