As a junior at Providence College, I am enrolled in the course Organizational Theory. In order to understand more about management and how organizations work, our professor requires us to do a semester-long project in which we are to choose an organization we wish to donate to, and work to plan events and awareness campaigns to promote and raise money for the cause. As an intern for Inspira Tlb for the past five months, I have grown dedicated to the fight against Lupus, and I knew that I wanted to work with Inspira: TLB and The Lupus Foundation of America for my class project.
In order to do this, however, I first had to find the support of four other classmates who wanted to work with me. At the time, we were learning about the impact that stories have on others. Knowing that the story behind Inspira was so powerful, I shared it with my class and ultimately formed a team with peers who saw the importance of raising awareness for such a rare yet powerful disease. Also, we decided that we wanted to incorporate mental health with Lupus, as it is such a huge concern in our country, and chronic disease can take a tremendous toll on a person’s mental health.
We came up with our team’s name, “Butterfly Effect”, to encompass Lupus and to symbolize the “waves” of impact we wanted to have on the community, similar to the waves that butterfly wings emit when they fly. With our team’s name and partnership established, we began brainstorming ideas for events. Ultimately, we decided that we wanted to host a golf tournament with food and a raffle. We also created various social media pages to spread awareness about Lupus. At the tournament, we will feature Inspira, its background, and several products to help emphasize the personal side to our efforts.
It has been amazing to see the support and engagement from our peers as they learn about Lupus; a common theme is many never hearing about Lupus; they felt inspired to support our cause. Something that was impacting and humbling is a student on Providence’s campus has Lupus; she was elated to see us bringing awareness to Lupus and mental health!