Proposal

 ** Project: **  My intended project is to hold a fundraising dance for breast cancer in the high school gym. I will plan this event over the course of thirty hours, with Emily Hunsicker. I plan on collaborating with the student council in order to hold this event, and will hopefully have it sometime towards the end of October. But, if this isn’t feasible, it will be held later in November, with the catch phrase, “Just Cause It Isn’t Breast Cancer Month Doesn’t Mean We Forget!” I hope to raise over a thousand dollars for breast cancer. By attending the dance, students will have tons of fun, but informational posters will be present, along with the color pink, in order to inform students of different facts and prevention procedures. By raising money, I hope to help work towards a cure.  My completion strategies are to talk to local businesses, and see if they will donate something in order to fund the night. I would need to either purchase some soda and food, or have some donated, and I would need to contact a DJ and see if they would donate their time. If they were unwilling, I would then go to some of the students, and see if someone’s band would be willing to play, or for a business to donate stereo equipment for the night, in order to play music.  I would need some soda and dessert options, along with stereo equipment and hopefully a live band. I would put over 30 hours into planning this event, finding donators, making the signs and getting decorations, and searching out bands to perform. I would need to find some chaperones, including Emily Hunsicker, and other members of the community willing to help out with my fundraising event.  ** Research: ** I chose to research not only breast cancer, but also the psychological effects it has on the women who are diagnosed, and the family members close to those women. I wanted to research this topic because my mother was diagnosed with breast cancer when I was four, and died from it and its complications when I was nine. I think that it is a very damaging disease not only to the women who have it, altering how they perceive themselves, but it also has a profound effect on the children of those women. I think the media tends to focus on the disease more than the side effects it causes in families and in self-image, and I think those are equally as important.  My essential question is “ What is breast cancer, and how does it psychologically impact the diagnosed and their family members?” I’ve had prior experience in this area because my mom had cancer, and I’ve done fundraisers in the past in order to benefit breast cancer. I’ve sold golf balls to benefit breast cancer since the seventh grade, and we collect donations from people who plan to match whatever we make by the end of the fall, and then send it in to the charity. I’ve also experience firsthand the psychological issues that accompany a family member having breast cancer, and can give personal insight with issues that I’ve witnessed or experienced.  The school population will benefit because hopefully, they will gain a better knowledge of breast cancer and its effects, and I think I personally will have a better insight to how my mother felt while diagnosed and fighting breast cancer, and how my sister and my father handled it. I think it will also help me deal with my future, and even though this pertains to the effects breast cancer has, it also helps me gain an insight to how disease changes not only the physical part of a body, but also the mental and emotional part, which sometimes falls by the wayside in current diagnosis.  Please see my annotated bibliography page for three potential reliable sources, and their validity.
 * Graduation Project Proposal: **