On Friday, October 21, Cairn’s women’s volleyball team held their annual Dig Pink event during their match against Lancaster Bible College. Initiated at Cairn by Coach Whitney Seidel in 2018, Dig Pink raises awareness and money for cancer research.
Leading up to the event, the women’s team designed and sold Dig Pink T-Shirts. Throughout the game, the team sold concessions as another way of raising funds. In past years, Cairn has teamed up with Side-Out, an organization dedicated to serving patients with breast cancer. For several years now, however, the Cairn women’s volleyball team has selected cancer-awareness organizations that their own team members’ families have relied on. Over $1,000 was raised this year for the “For Pete’s Sake” Cancer Respite Foundation, an organization dedicated to giving cancer patients and their families a chance to experience respite from the burdens cancer can bring.
Raising proceeds for the organization has been particularly meaningful to senior player Lizzy Fay and her mother, Michele, who has been battling cancer since 2009. The Fay family appreciates support from such an organization, and the women’s volleyball team is proud to host an event to raise awareness and funds for the Fay family through the organization.
Coach Seidel, on behalf of the team, says “being able to support our teammates and their families as they journey through some of the most difficult periods of their lives is one of the highest honors I have experienced coaching this volleyball program.” Each year, the event has played an impactful role not only in raising awareness, but also in showing faithful support to Cairn students and their families.
Coach Seidel adds “Dig Pink is one of the most important days of our season every year. I firmly believe that collegiate athletics is at its best when it is used as a platform for service and community impact, especially at a university like Cairn, where the expectation is that our athletes are learning to ‘walk a different path’ through the love and service of others.”
The unity and support the team shares with one another is evident not simply in their conduct on the court, but for their continual support for one another in events such as these.
