Sunday, February 18, 2007

LiveStrong

I was a big fan of the LIVESTRONG movement -- a great fundraising / marketing campaign that swept the country. The yellow silicon bracelets were worn by hundreds of thousand of people following their debut in May of 2004 including Democratic Presidential candidate John Kerry, Katie Couric, Matt Damon, and several athletes at the Athens Olympic Games.

The band is part of the "Wear Yellow Live Strong" educational program. The program is intended to raise money for cancer research, raise cancer awareness, and encourage people to live life to the fullest (source: wiki).


"Such visibility and endorsements were the reason that the bands have attained fashionable status — along with a desire to appear charitable" (source: wiki).


That is where the problem lies...giving to this charity became fashionable and has now gone out of style. You couldn't go anywhere without seeing people with their LIVESTRONG bracelets that summer of '04 and it is now extremely rare when you see someone wearing one. Do all of those people who wore their bracelets religiously for the first 6 months not believe in cancer research & awareness anymore? Perhaps the bracelets broke or just became to filthy to wear and the replacement fee of $1 didn't fit into their tight budgets. You have to make a concerted effort to wear it daily for a long period of time and then just take it off to never wear it again.

1 comment:

DCDean said...

LiveStrong is a joke. Lance Armstrong is a joke as well.

Cancer research is a wonderful cause (My Grandfather passed away from cancer) and shouldn't be headed up by a juiced athlete that was nursed back to health with the assistance of his wife only then to be dumped immediately after being "cured" for Sheryl Crow.

Lance Armstrong is a joke and so is his cause. How much money is lining his pocket on this one?