Freshman Nick Ost started Sacks of Love to raise money for testicular cancer research
Freshman Nick Ost started Sacks of Love with his friend from high school. Ost launched the non-profit at UP this year, and hopes to eventually donate all his profits to testicular cancer research. (Giovanna Solano | THE BEACON)
By Philip Ellefson, Staff Writer ellefson15@up.edu
Freshman Nick Ost is having a ball - or two - in his fight to support testicular cancer research.
Ost, an entrepreneurship major, is the co-founder of Sacks of Love, a nonprofit organization dedicated to awareness and research of testicular cancer. The organization raises money by selling apparel, and donates some of the money to the M.D. Anderson Cancer Center at the University of Texas.
Although Ost had never met anyone affected by testicular cancer, he wanted to make an impact. So during his senior year of high school, he started working with Christopher Utterback, a friend from high school.
"I called him one night and said, 'What can we do to make a difference?'" Ost said. "It sounds really cheesy, but it's actually a true story."
Because most people are not aware of testicular cancer, Ost and Utterback decided to do something about it. Their hope was to start a nonprofit that does for testicular cancer what the nonprofit organizatinon I Love Boobies did for breast cancer.
But Ost and Utterback are starting small. Now that they are in college, they are using the campuses of UP and Western Washington University, where Utterback goes to school, to launch the nonprofit.
Sophomore Emma Englund, who is working with Ost as the social media manager, said college campuses are a great place for Sacks of Love to take off, since college-age men are some of the most likely to get testicular cancer.
"It's not something you're trying to prevent forty, fifty years from now that you should be concerned about, but it's something that's happening to college kids, and friends of college kids," Englund said.
According to the American Cancer Society, about 8,590 new cases of testicular cancer are diagnosed each year in the U.S. Of those cases, 360 men will die of the disease.
Freshman Brooke Murphy, the organization's operations and event manager, agreed that college campuses are a good place to start organizations like Sacks of Love.
"College students are always excited, and this is something brand new," Murphy said.
Murphy is planning to get a table set up to sell merchandise on campus, and she hopes to hold larger events like fundraisers in the future. Englund is busy managing the organization's Facebook and Twitter pages, as well as setting up a website and blog.
Sacks of Love recently got a wave of online support after a friend posted their logo to the social news website Reddit and asked Reddit users to support the non-profit.
"It was the night of the presidential debate, and we went number one for seven consecutive hours. Over 500,000 views on it," Ost said. "Number two was the presidential debate. It was shocking."
Englund said the Reddit post connected them with people who wanted to help them out.
"I was surprised at how many people don't just think it's funny, but they genuinely want to be involved, and know what they can do now to start helping, or how they can bring it to their school," Englund said.
But Ost said humor is an important part of Sacks of Love's attitude toward testicular cancer.
"I've found that the best way to approach a situation that's just dire is through humor," Ost said.
Murphy said cracking jokes is a good way to get people excited about a cause.
"A sad story touches your heart, but a positive one, and a positive way to change that makes you want to get involved, drives you, creates an inspiration," Murphy said.
Since they started the nonprofit, Ost has come met several people who have experienced testicular cancer. He was inspired by a man he met in an airport whose son had had the disease. The man told Ost the story of when they raised $100,000 through a lacrosse tournament. Ost showed him the design and the plan for his nonprofit.
"He looked at the symbol and he thought that there would be a lot of support, and he thought that this could be really big," Ost said. "He told me, 'I raised a hundred thousand dollars doing this; I think you could raise a million.' It just kind of clicked."
Although the organization is only seven months old, Ost has big plans for Sacks of Love. Right now, Sacks of Love is only sending a portion of their earnings to M.D. Anderson for research, because they need enough money to establish the non-profit. But eventually, Ost wants to be able to send all of the profits to M.D. Anderson for research. And he wants to reduce incidence of testicular cancer to zero cases per year.
"Ultimately, we're trying to put ourselves out of business, I think," Ost said. "That'd be great."
