When we first met as a group, I had no idea what we might end up with, but I knew I wanted to make a difference in the area of cancer research.

When Dr Katherine Putnam first suggested we could create a Travel Grant I was really surprised. The thought of doing something that big all by ourselves seemed very daunting to me. Nonetheless, we decided it would be our goal to raise between $2000 and $3000. We did exactly that – and more!

Together we devised an action plan. Everyone in the group would go and collect donations from (very generous) shops and businesses in the local area. The results were amazing – by sending a few well-worded emails I was able to collect over $1000 worth of goods, and as a group we collected over $5000 worth of raffle prizes!

But that was only the first step…

From there, we designed a poster and advertised our raffle with the prizes we collected. After selling all our tickets, we had more than $2000 to use for our grant. At the same time, Dr Putnam and our board of student judges set up our own web page and received applicants for the women’s Travel Grant.

We reviewed them in September and selected our winner - Dr Amy Wilson from the Hudson Institute at Monash University. 

The experience has been very rewarding. Not only have we raised money, but we’re supporting female scientists and raising awareness for Ovarian Cancer. All in all, the Ovarian Cancer Research Group was definitely something worth standing for!

Izzy
Year 9