Prouty raises record funds over weekend

By Ashley Blum, The Dartmouth Staff

Published on Tuesday, July 12, 2011

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Dartmouth students came out in full force on Friday and Saturday to bike, walk, row and volunteer as part of the 30th annual Prouty fundraiser, helping to break last year’s record of $2.2 million raised for the Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center’s Norris Cotton Cancer Center, according to Jean Brown, executive director of the Prouty.

The total amount raised this year is still being counted, according to the Prouty website.

Brown said the success of this year’s fundraising efforts by over 5,000 volunteers and participants was “mindblowing.”

“It’s a very rich day,” she said. “It’s fun, but it’s more than fun and I think people appreciate that.”

The Prouty offers the opportunity to “do something about cancer” to community members who might not otherwise make the effort, Brown said. She added that an important feature of the Prouty is that the money supports the needs of local Upper Valley residents while also helping cancer patients across the country through innovative research.

Among Dartmouth student organizations, Theta Delta Chi fraternity raised the most money for the Center, and it raised the fifth highest amount of money amongst all participants, according to the Prouty’s website. The fraternity raised $51,907 and recruited 31 members, the website said.

Theta Delt’s fundraising efforts were led by president James Garry ’13 and Thomas Patek ’13, Garry said in an interview with The Dartmouth. Members of the fraternity sent emails to their friends and family encouraging them to donate, Garry said, adding that Patek also set up a website for donations.

“Tommy and I both wanted to make sure that the Prouty was something that we were going to take very seriously,” Garry said. “We wanted it to be something to define our summer.”

Patek, who participated in honor of family members affected by cancer, was recognized by the Prouty website for raising $29,560 for the Center so far, making him the third highest fundraiser among individuals, according to the website.

Everyone in the fraternity became actively involved in fundraising and participating in the event, Patek said.

“It was a complete team effort,” he said. “It was a really awesome experience, great for the fraternity members, for the alumni, for the fraternity system and for Dartmouth.”

For the first time, participants in this year’s Prouty had the option of rowing in addition to running, walking and riding a bike, according to Nancy Carter, secretary of Friends of Hanover Crew. The organization is a nonprofit group that supports the Hanover High School crew team, according to the organization’s website.

Under the leadership of Carin Reynolds, who serves on the group’s board of directors, Friends of Hanover Crew was instrumental in adding sculling to this year’s events, Carter said. She added that their Prouty team also received the award for raising the most money, having the most volunteers and recruiting the most new participants.

Friends of Hanover Crew raised $102,654 and recruited a total of 250 members ­— 74 of them new to the event — Carter said.

In previous years, representatives of the organization have typically biked during the Prouty and noticed that much of the cycling path followed the Connecticut River, Carter said. Several rowers decided that it would be “very logical” to add rowing to the event, she said.

In addition to the numerous Dartmouth organizations that took part, scholars from the Summer Enrichment at Dartmouth were also active fundraisers and participants in the event this year, according to SEAD Director Jay Davis ’90.

SEAD raised over $9,500, but organizers have not yet totaled all of the group’s earnings, according to Davis. All SEAD students helped with fundraising and either walked or ran in the Prouty, he said.

Davis said the Prouty was an important event for the SEAD program not only due to the money raised for the Center, but also because of its impact on the SEAD students.

“As a philosophical point, it’s incredibly important for high school students to understand how empowering service can be,” he said. “We’re trying to do good, and we’re trying to have students understand that service can be a lifelong commitment.”

Davis said he also hoped to encourage the SEAD scholars to connect to the cause on a personal level by having each student name the people they knew who had suffered from cancer and whom they wanted to honor as they walked.

The event, which began in 1982, is named in honor of Audrey Prouty, a cancer patient who left a profound impact on the nurses who treated her, according to the Center’s website. Following Prouty’s death, the nurses decided to bike 100 miles to raise money for other cancer patients.

In the first Prouty, the four nurses raised $4,000 for the Center. Since then, the event has expanded to include thousands of volunteers and participants and numerous event, according to the event website.

The money raised at the Prouty supports cancer research and patient services, according to Brown. The proceeds provide seed money to scientists as they launch innovative research, she said. It also funds massages for cancer patients, support groups, art programs for inpatients and music in hospitals to help “ease the way,” Brown said.