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Making the Big Climb to Cure Blood Cancer

Good Causes >

BigClimb-Hi-ResBrown Paper Tickets’ special ops event genius Erika Harder led a team of brave and well-hydrated Brown Paper Ticketeers to climb the tallest building in Seattle (no, it’s NOT the Space Needle) at the Leukemia Lymphoma Society’s Big Climb on Sunday.

At 788 feet of vertical elevation, the Columbia Center in downtown Seattle stands as the second tallest building west of the Mississippi. We joined 6,000 people in climbing 69 flights of stairs, or 1,311 steps, in an effort to collectively raise $2.6 million to fund the fight to find a cure for blood cancer.

Our fundraising efforts will continue through April 3, and our humble group is already in the Top 100 fundraising teams, having found generous contributors to donate more than $4,000 for blood cancer research. Our own Erika Harder is one of the top 100 most-successful fund-wranglers, having rustled up $2000.22 in donations.

This wasn’t our first rodeo. Brown Paper Tickets’ employees have done the Big Climb as a group every year since 2010, and collectively raised more than $10,000 toward research for a blood cancer cure. For some, Big Climb day is more than a fundraiser. Erika has a very personal reason for making the climb.

Erika says, “My brother developed HSTC Lymphoma in 2009 and passed away in 2010. Participating in the Climb to raise money for the Leukemia Lymphoma Society’s efforts feels like the least I can do to meditate on his struggle, and hope that other families won’t have to experience this. I think about him every day, but I try not to think about him with cancer every day. His talent and energy and unique way of seeing the world are what I try to carry forward. Big Climb day is an exception to that. It also gives our friends and family an opportunity to remember him and ‘help in some way.’

I hope the research that the Leukemia Lymphoma Society does include learning how to prevent cancers and also non-conventional treatments for them. Either way, research needs to happen and to be funded, so I appreciate being able to contribute. Cancer sucks.”

At the end of the Big Climb, we all gained a sense of accomplishment as well as spectacular views of Seattle from the top of Columbia Tower.

skyview

As we work for a Not-Just-For-Profit company, we all receive “paid time on” – 40 hours of paid time annually to volunteer for the cause of our choice. We often get together during work hours to volunteer and/or raise funds or support good causes. We love helping people use Brown Paper Tickets’ one-of-a-kind tools to accept funds online with no service fees and to help organize fundraising events for all kinds of causes. Brown Paper Tickets matched employee donations and contributed $625.

Big-Climb-ErikaGet Cheers from Brown Paper Tickets

Donate here by April 3 to help stop blood cancer. If you donate now, the Brown Paper Ticketeers Big Climb team will stop all work and do a cheer in your honor. We’re serious.

Here’s a preview: your cheer will probably look a lot like this one, courtesy of Seattle Cheer, a nonprofit group that lends out their professional cheer squad services to nonprofit events like they did for the Leukemia Lymphoma Society Big Climb.