Love Your Melon
Veronica Morales—
Staff Writer
Just days after Christmas in 2015, freshman nursing major Hallie Crossnoe announced on Instagram the founding of a new organization on the Tarleton State University Stephenville campus called Love Your Melon.
Love Your Melon is an organization, which began as an idea to put a hat on every child battling cancer in the United States. On October 22, 2012, the two founders Zachary Quinn and Brian Keller founded the organization with the hope of helping those in need.
Since 2014, Love Your Melon has worked to establish a network of college students who help spread the mission of the organization in their own cities. These Love Your Melon ambassadors, as called by the organization, have gained over 7,500 college students who serve in over 500 universities throughout the country. These ambassadors help sell and donate hats through their buy one, give one program, which donates one hat to a child battling cancer for every hat purchased.
The hats are donated by Love Your Melon Campus Crew who deliver the hats to the children. With the Buy One, Give One program, Love Your Melon has collected over 45,000 hats to donate to children in the United States.
With the help of Crossnoe, Love Your Melon is now an organization at Tarleton working towards promoting Love Your Melon’s mission of improving the lives of children battling cancer.
As Tarleton’s Love Your Melon Captain, Crossnoe oversees meetings, events and other crew members as well as maintains contact with the Love Your Melon organization.
Hallie Crossnoe wearing a Love Your Melon beanie.
Photo from the Tarleton Love Your Melon Crew Instagram page.
Crossnoe’s interest in oncology began after a cancer scare she endured during her sophomore year of high school.
“With the removal of a thankfully benign tumor, my perception on childhood cancer turned into inspiration. At that point in my life, I knew I wanted to be a nurse, but through this event, I knew pediatric oncology would be my calling. The next few years I volunteered at Cook Children’s in Fort Worth in the hematology/oncology floor and absolutely fell in love with the kids and the atmosphere. Once I heard about Love Your Melon, I knew this was something I needed to bring to our campus. And thus, Tarleton State University Love Your Melon Campus Crew was born,” said Crossnoe.
The Campus Crew at Tarleton currently has 18 members, which is only 2 members short of reaching the maximum allowed by Love Your Melon.
Because of the growing interest in the organization, once the Tarleton crew reaches 20 members, there will be a waiting list formed.
“Just by simply purchasing a beanie, you are helping put an end to childhood cancer. 50 percent of the proceeds from each beanie sold goes to pediatric cancer research. Also, through the hard work put into promoting the products, the crew will have opportunities to personally meet up with these families and children undergoing an extremely hard time in their lives to give them hope and put a smile on their faces. From personal experience, there is no greater reward in the world than making a child, whose circumstances are extremely scary and can seem hopeless, smile and for a moment forget they are sick,” said Crossnoe.
Every few weeks, Love Your Melon announces a release, which is when the crew begins promoting their mission and products which are only sold online. In order to be able to deliver beanies to the children, the crew must earn credits. These credits are earned when someone purchases a product online and chooses a particular campus to support. The credits from products purchased by Tarleton supporters will go to the Tarleton Campus Crew. These credits will also allow them to hold bigger events to get the campus involved.
“Our crew would love to see Love Your Melon beanies on the head of every Tarleton student, because knowing that they have supported this cause means that we are steps closer to putting a stop to childhood cancer. It also gives the crew the opportunity to personally reach out to these kids and their families to support them during their battle against cancer,” said Crossnoe.
The Tarleton Crew plans to hold information tables every few weeks to promote Love Your Melon’s mission on the Tarleton campus.
