In June, our friends at the American Cancer Society invited Shihan Stephen Robinson to fundraise as a MenWearPink ambassador for the North Carolina eastern half of the state. We responded, “We wear pink belts all month, and this year, we can put on a fundraising pink belt tournament!” Little did we know that all of the competitors would wear their pink belts throughout the tournament, well after the demonstration! So here you go, check out the video below.
Setting goals throughout life teaches self-determination AND reaching out for help. We had to ask a lot of people to publicize, share mats, technology, and know-how to put together the event quickly, and fundraise from strangers. When we found out that pink belts were not available in all the sizes we wanted, we had to ask our very resourceful booster club to dye more than 100 white belts pink. When we saw that our competitor registration was lagging, we had to pivot to inviting more people for a 100-kata challenge and to prepare a demonstration for a special guest speaker from the ACS. We kept to the goal, we just had to be very creative in how to reach it and reach out. Thank goodness, people love to help. And we got lots of help.
We were able to raise 100% of our goal of $5000. We want to thank the families of Triangle’s Best Karate, Goldsboro Karate, Vanguard Karate, and athletes from New Jersey, South Carolina, and Florida who competed. Let’s go bigger next year. Pink (and Gold, Silver, and Bronze) look good on you!