Home Stretch

20 Time turned out to be much more than we expected. We bounced around from idea to idea until we landed on a fundraiser to spread awareness about a fatal mutation of non-small cell lung cancer. The name of the cancer mutation was epidermal growth factor receptor non-small cell lung cancer or EGFR NSCLC for short. Our inspiration was my grandfather, Ram Paul Gupta. As we said before, he beat cancer 12 years ago, but that came with the price of 1/3 of his left lung. Unfortunately, the cancer mutated and came back. This mutation was only recently discovered and has no known survival rate, and that is why we wanted to spread awareness. Our goal was to raise $5000 and donate it to Max Diehn's research team. They are researching the mutation's ability to grow resistant to every medicine given. We were connected to Dr. Diehn by Dr. Heather Wakelee, head of oncology at Stanford Hospital.

There were two major obstacles we needed to overcome. The first was setting up a conference call with the busiest person in the world. Once we talked to Dr. Wakelee live, she recommended us to Dr. Diehn. After we had an objective and a destination for the money, we set up the campaign. Then the second major obstacle surfaced. Spreading the word. We knew we had to use social media to the max. We understood spreading the word to our friends would have an extremely low success rate, as teenagers don't usually have money. We spent the entire second half of 20Time spreading the word. We started with family and family friends. From this, we raised $501. This was a great momentum boost. However, everything cooled down after about a week. Because of this, we decided to extend our reach. We went to Twitter and messaged every celebrity known to donate to small fundraisers. We sent out emails or messages to about 20-30 celebrities, but with little success. We knew we wouldn't hit our target by the end of 20Time, but that was okay. Alex and I became so enthralled in the project that we plan on continuing this campaign and quest for raising awareness for as long as possible. From a simple project, we evolved into a lifelong adventure. Even though we reached only 1/10 of our goal, we are just getting started. We have some possible paths to take. We could make a club and continue to grow inside the school, or we could create a small non-profit organization in public and try to grow as large as possible. 

In our opinion, our work and growing passion for what we did deserves an A. Although we did not reach our goal of $5000 in the allotted time, we accomplished many things as individuals and as a cohesive unit. Before this project, Alex and I were just acquaintances or just before friends. We had mutual friends, but we didn't really connect with each other. However, this project allowed us to learn and bond with each other. Other than a new friendship, we both gained many useful traits. The most significant trait was time management. It is easy to make a schedule when the deadline is in sight, like for a book report or a test. However, when the deadline is about two months away and you only have a rough outline, you must stay on track and manage the project from every angle possible. Considering this was one of the biggest project we have done, and it included factors out of our control, we had to manage not only time but stay alert and be ready for a major set back at any time. Another major quality we acquired was the ability to cope with real world problems and situations. Considering Dr. Wakelee was a huge part of our project and our schedules did not match up at all, we had to manage and balance the project and our academic career.

Another factor in our evaluation is that this turned into more than just a project. Alex and I are continuing this fundraiser and awareness campaign beyond the bare minimum. We actually care about this topic, and we plan on growing it beyond this school.

Our fundraiser is below:
https://www.gofundme.com/the-financer-against-lung-cancer