Loyola’s Bateman competition team is encouraging the Loyola community to Geaux for Gold and support their With Purpose campaign, emphasizing childhood cancer awareness.

The Bateman Case Study Competition is Public Relations Student Society of America’s premier national case study competition for public relation students, where a team of five develops a full-scale campaign for a different client each year.

Loyola’s Bateman team is competing against other Bateman teams in the national competition by designing and running a campaign for With Purpose, a non-profit attempting to improve healthcare conditions for children diagnosed with cancer through community involvement and treatment advancements.

The Bateman’s team goal is to increase awareness of the problems with the treatment of childhood cancer in the United States, while also giving the members of the team experience that will benefit them in the future, according to Camille Didelot, mass communication senior and member of the Bateman team.

“The significance of it is that it allows students to give a voice to those children going through cancer treatments and advocate for better conditions for them,” Didelot said.

The team is petitioning to the New Orleans City Council to declare March 14 a day dedicated to helping children diagnosed with cancer and bringing awareness to the issue, which will be known as A Day With Purpose.

“While we are doing this through Bateman, this competition has nothing to do with us. It’s about With Purpose, and it’s about making a difference for these children, and we are all dedicated to the cause,” Didelot said. “It’s not just business; it’s personal. When you are diagnosed with childhood cancer, the odds are against you.”

Childhood cancer affects many individual children and their families. Graphic design junior Ariel Landry was diagnosed with stage II Hodgkin’s lymphoma when she was nine. Like most children diagnosed with cancer, adjusting was difficult for Landry because she felt extremely isolated – not many people knew how to react to her diagnosis, or how they could help her.

“I think the petition for A Day With Purpose is really great. There are days and months set aside for cancer awareness that tends to affect adults more often,” said Landry. “It would be nice to have a day specifically focused on childhood cancer.”

Tala Maalouli, biology and computer information system senior, was diagnosed with a juvenile pilocytic astrocytoma brain tumor when she was six.

“I have always lived by the motto ‘never give up,’” Maalouli said. “It is important to never give up fighting cancer because we need to bring more awareness into the world to childhood cancer to promote more research studies, which will ultimately result in cures to cancer.”

Both Maalouli and Landry are hopeful and excited about the campaign.

“An organization like With Purpose could educate the community. People could learn that children do get cancer and how they can best support those kids,” Landry said.

The team’s campaign will run from the middle of February to the middle of March. To support the Bateman team and With Purpose, the petition for A Day With Purpose can be signed at goo.gl/YxBKPN.