Aside
The ALS Association Florida Chapter is more than just one of the accounts I handle here at Dunn&Co. It’s also a cause and a group of people that I’ve come to care deeply about as I’ve worked with them over the past year and a half or so. So it was my privilege to once again serve as a member of the planning committee for the Tampa Bay Walk to Defeat ALS, which took place on Saturday, March 17th at the University of South Florida Campus.
As a committee member, I was thrilled with how smoothly everything went, from set-up to clean-up. The turn out was great, and ALS patients and their families felt that the layout of the event and the 1.7 mile walk route were easily navigable, a critical element for patients in chairs. Even one notoriously hard to please patient informed the Walk Manager that she “hit the nail on the head.” The weather was gorgeous, we had food trucks on the premises, a great DJ and fun activities for the little ones. Dunn&Co. had a nice-sized team representing at the walk and I was able to enjoy the stroll with my co-workers and their families.
As a Dunn&Co. employee, I was proud to know that this walk and all others in Florida are being promoted and supported by a beautiful campaign that we created. The campaign includes posters, print ads, web banners, outdoor boards, brochures, and a PSA urging people to “Put on your walking shoes. Because they no longer can.”
We also created a powerful ambient display involving individual podiums holding the shoes of a patient, living or deceased, accompanied by a card describing the life they lived in those shoes before ALS stole their ability to do so. It’s being set up at all the walks and Saturday was the first time I’d seen it set up in person. It was incredibly emotional…
When you’re involved in the every day nuts and bolts of putting together a campaign like this, you can tend not to see the forest for the trees. It’s all about details and deadlines, proofing copy and making sure photos are the right resolution, sourcing display materials and figuring out logistics. You get so used to seeing the elements as individual pieces, that you aren’t necessarily prepared for what it’s going to be like when it all comes together in the end.
So, as I walked around those 11 displays on Saturday morning, with the sun rising in the sky behind me, I got choked up. There were the trademark red Converse sneakers of Matt June, a fellow committee member who married his new wife Jackie this past New Year’s eve. And there were the well-worn khaki-colored boots of Beau MacVane, an Army Ranger who survived multiple tours, but lost his battle with ALS in 2009. I didn’t know him, but I know plenty of guys who’ve served, and the fact that ALS is twice as likely to affect those who’ve served in the military is very scary to me. There were the perfectly polished uniform shoes of Danny Sargent, who served as a Captain of the West Palm Beach SWAT team. There were shoes representing men and women, young and old, black and white and Hispanic. You look at them and think, “This really can happen to anyone.”
From idea to execution, the displays hit the mark. I received a great deal of compliments and thanks from the ALS Association folks that day, which I accepted on behalf of my team. But it’s bittersweet. I wish that the ALS Association didn’t have to exist at all and that there was no reason for us to do this work. But with no known cause and no cure, this evil disease demands otherwise. And as long as that is the case, this is the least we can do.
-Sarah
