Monday Motivation: Love Your Melon

Typically, Mondays are for mashups but I think we will start incorporating a new feature once a month that highlights an organization or charity doing something to better this crazy world we live in. This feature will be called #MondayMotivation. We will kickoff this exciting new feature with an organization who's name you may have heard of (especially if you support a number of non-profits in the fight against cancer). Love Your Melon is an apparel brand run by college students across the country on a mission to give a hat to every child battling cancer in America.

Not only are these hats a coping mechanism for those children that may lose their hair due to chemo but they are also a symbol of support and unity when people not battling the hardships of cancer purchase and wear them. Love Your Melon was founded in an entrepreneurship class in 2012 at the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, Minnesota by two friends, Zach and Brian. With this simple idea of providing each child with cancer a hat, they have reserved more than 45,000 hats to donate to children battling cancer in the United States through its original buy one, give one program. This is equal to the number of children currently undergoing cancer treatment in the country.

To celebrate reaching this goal and further expand their impact, they have partnered with the Pinky Swear Foundation to provide immediate support for children battling cancer and with CureSearch for Children’s Cancer to fund research initiatives to beat childhood cancer completely. Love Your Melon has launched a new model to replace its buy one, give one program - fifty percent (50%) of net proceeds on every Love Your Melon product sold will be donated to the Pinky Swear Foundation and CureSearch. Every year there are 15,000 children in the country given new cancer diagnoses. Through funding from future product sales, Love Your Melon will continue to give hats to all of these kids in addition to the 45,000 it has already committed to.

Since 2012, Love Your Melon has embarked on two nationwide tours in 2014 to spread its mission from coast to coast. Throughout this time they worked to establish a network of college students called Love Your Melon Ambassadors who are responsible for spreading the mission of the organization in their own city. To date, more than 2,500 college students at over 225 different schools nationally have signed on as ambassadors to sell and donate hats. What makes these ambassadors so special? Well, when hats are delivered in person at these hospitals, the ambassadors dress as superheroes, bringing an even bigger smile to these kids faces. We are totally blown away by these efforts! If you know a child battling cancer that has not received a Love Your Melon hat yet, visit the "Request a Hat" page to request a hospital delivery.

Want to know more about the products? Check this out. Featured on their website, Love Your Melon tells how and where these hats are made. Their thick knit beanies and hats are made in St. Paul, Minnesota by Minnesota Knitting Mills. Love Your Melon has worked intensively with them to create soft products for children battling cancer as well as innovative ones for customers. The Love Your Melon caps are made in Denver, CO by Competition Headwear with the same goal to keep these hats soft and comfortable. Lastly, Gotham Textile, in Minneapolis, MN, makes the patches that go on the hats from leather produced at Red Wing Shoe Factory. They deboss the Love Your Melon logo into leather with a heat press. Love Your Melon wouldn't be possible without the efforts put forth by these extraordinary businesses.

This organization has become so wildly popular that all of their products are currently sold out. Yes, sold out! If you visit their page, you can sign up to be notified as to when products are back and available for purchase. Keep an eye out for Love Your Melon and the work they do to devour the details of the fight against cancer. We wish this organization nothing but success as they continue to grow!