What happened?

OK - odds are, if you are reading this blog you already know very well that Love Your Buns founder, my wife, Sara DCamp passed away on October 15, 2021 after battling colorectal cancer for over five years. And odds are, if you are reading this blog you have already most likely read at least a couple of my blog entries where I talk a bit about my grieving experience after losing my dear wife, best friend and soulmate. So we’ve had a few months of turmoil and figuring things out and here we are almost four months later.

Sara DCamp
LYB Founder and Executive Director
1982-2021

What you likely don’t know though and might have been wondering about – what does this all mean for Love Your Buns? Has it been on pause, or are we winding down, or are we coming back in full force?

What does this mean for Love Your Buns?

The answer to that question is mixed, but ultimately you should know that Love Your Buns is indeed moving forward. We’re significantly injured by the loss of our visionary leader and founder – but her legacy simply cannot be abandoned, and her tremendous sacrifice cannot be proven futile.

I’ve wondered to myself – how can I/we possibly do this? How can we move forward with this organization when everything it stands for and is trying to achieve is so intrinsically related to the ailment that ultimately caused Sara’s death? Well, as painful as it may be to be consistently reminded of this reality, this is exactly why we must keep going. We must keep trying to make a difference. If we can save anyone from the fate that our beloved Sara faced, it means we’re doing the right thing.

Who is taking over the reins?

Having established that we are going to keep moving forward, a key aspect that needed to be addressed was – who is going to lead Love Your Buns? Sara was the Executive Director (volunteer), and officially was the only actual staff member of the LYB organization. Everyone else involved has been in more ad hoc volunteer capacities or as a member of the board of directors.

The debate started to be – for me at least: as a co-founder, should I remain as the chair of the board, or should I volunteer to take on the Executive Director role? As someone still somewhat inexperienced in the non-profit world – is it a good idea for me to be the Executive Director? Or should the Executive Director be someone else that is ignorant of LYB’s history but could bring more non-profit experience? What would best enable Love Your Buns for future growth and hopefully expanded impact?

One thing was clear – I could not be both the Chair of the Board, and the Executive Director at the same time.
So after discussion and deliberation with the LYB board, seeking advice from friends and other third parties, and many hours of self-contemplation – I’ve recently accepted the appointment of Executive Director of Love Your Buns, and have officially taken on this capacity as of January 23, 2022.

Rationale behind this decision

In the end, the deciding factor for me was the continuation of Sara’s vision. Who knows better where she wanted to take this organization than me!? OK that sounds arrogant/boastful – but what I mean is that Sara and I talked so much over the last few years about her vision and the changes she wanted to make in this world to help others. As the chair of LYB, we partnered in many strategic discussions. Yet another moment where the strength of our partnership has been very valuable!

And she already did so much – when she didn’t have to. Life truly dealt her a tough hand, and she took that challenge and decided that she needed to save others from facing the same outcomes that she did. And I feel very strongly as a widower that is devoutly dedicated to honoring my wife’s legacy – I must take on this role and truly give it my all. And while that sounds like my reasons are more in the realm of obligation than being driven by my own internal motives – the truth is that a fanatical effort to fulfill Sara’s vision for Love Your Buns and to fight young onset colorectal cancer is now truly central to my existence. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to stop fighting it now. And to deny this would likely be damaging to my mental health!

How can we best honor Sara’s legacy?

My view on it right now at least is that we need to keep going, even if it hurts. We need to spread the word - talk about colorectal cancer even if the conversation isn’t convenient or isn’t comfortable. If we look back at everything Sara said and did as the Executive Director – I’d say her vision kind of boils down to this sort of statement:

Visualizing a path towards saving the lives of young adults living with colorectal cancer

We need to save as many lives as possible by minimizing the number of young adults living with undiagnosed colorectal cancer, and reducing the duration that those young adults go undiagnosed

How we do that is not easy and it is certainly fairly widely scoped. But in summary I believe we can drive change on the above by acting in these key areas:

Provide tools and guidance for self-advocacy in the currently unscreenable population in order to EMPOWER patients to get a colonoscopy or other testing if warranted!
EDUCATE young adults so they understand what they need to be watching out for so they will know when symptoms warrant attention from a doctor!
Reduce the stigma and get more people talking about CRC at younger ages in order to avoid unnecessary delays in getting worrying symptoms checked out - ultimately, IMPROVING SURVIVORSHIP!

Where do we start?

Help us reach our goal of raising $10,000 this Thursday!

Funny you should ask! In the immediate future we have Giving Hearts Day coming up on February 10th. And Love Your Buns is finally taking part in it! It’s a long story how we managed to not be participating in previous years, but in any case – this is clearly a good opportunity for our local non-profit community to raise substantial funding and we’re excited to be involved.

For Love Your Buns we have $3,000 in match donations lined up, meaning every dollar you give to LYB on February 10th is doubled, at least for a while! We’re setting a goal of $10,000 for our first run at Giving Hearts Day and we certainly hope you will consider LYB when you are planning your GHD giving!

Don’t forget!
If you want to make sure you get your LYB donation in for Giving Hearts Day, you can schedule that now through Tuesday. After that, you’ll have to wait until Thursday! https://app.givingheartsday.org/#/charity/1626

Where do your donation funds go?
As an established but still very small non-profit, we do not have any paid staff members and our operating expenses are generally low. What this means is that nearly 100% of your donations go directly to our programming that is already actively impacting our communities, including:

Chemotherapy CADD pump bags that are so appreciated by CRC patients here in the Fargo area, and around the country
Hosting of educational events and webinars
Researching and providing up to date information and educational resources around on CRC, Young Onset CRC, LARS and more
Social media and other outreach campaigns to raise awareness of young onset CRC
And more!

Thanks to everyone for the support!

Lastly, huge thanks to all of you for the expressions of sympathy, words of kindness and show of support to me and all of Sara’s loved ones. It has made all the difference in helping us get through these really difficult times. Your support moving forward is what will keep us going and will make Sara’s vision possible!

The worst has happened - where does LYB go from here?