2020 South University Chili Cook-Off Fundraiser for Lifebox

A sincere thank you to the students and faculty at South University for hosting another successful fundraiser for Lifebox! Our work is only possible because of our supporters – and around the world, lives are saved because of it. We are also thankful to the staff, sponsors, and donors for helping anesthesia providers receive the tools and training they need to give their patients the best care possible.

“Our program supports Lifebox every year because we see how important their work is. We are in operating rooms every day, and see just how essential the medical equipment that they are providing is. The fact that they can provide this equipment is saving lives, and we understand the difference they are making,” says Haley Touchton, the student who organized this year’s cook-off.

Lifebox strives to bridge the gap between care providers in high-resource settings with their colleagues in low- and middle-resource settings. Our goal is ensuring that care providers in the US can directly contribute to their colleagues’ success around the world – which is why events like this are so important for our safe anesthesia programs. When asked about this year’s event, Haley said, “Our students were really driven to raise as much as we could and devoted a lot of time and effort into getting sponsorships and donations. I think we are lucky in the fact that the students before us have made this such an awesome event in the past!”

Lifebox is always excited to support fundraisers for safer surgery and anesthesia! Not sure where to start? Haley offers this: “The biggest piece of advice I can give to groups who are trying to start an event like this is to recruit help and delegate jobs. It is a lot of work, but if you spread out the tasks and everyone pitches in, it makes it much more manageable. Remember what you’re fundraising for!” An important point, because starting small can still have a big impact on providers and patients around the world.

A special thanks to Dr. Stacie Wong, Lifebox champion and South University faculty who oversees the Chili Cook-Off, and to Haley Touchton for organizing the event!

For information on how to host your own fundraiser for Lifebox, contact [email protected]. Alternatively, make a donation to give directly to Lifebox.