Rockies Make History, Promote Philanthropy

LOVE YOUR MELON BROUGHT TO COORS FIELD

History was made Saturday night at the Colorado Rockies game, Sept. 17, hosted at Denver’s own Coors field.

For the first time in Rockies history, right-handed pitcher Jon Gray set a new club record by pitching a complete game with 16 strikeouts, no walks, and only four hits. In non-sports jargon, that’s pretty impressive. For a Rockies pitcher, anyway. Gray made new strides for the Rockies in the 8-7 win over the San Diego Padres, but more importantly, something else happened for the first time at Coors Field—the Colorado Rockies Organization partnered with Love Your Melon to sell beanies and support the fight against childhood cancer for “Love Your Melon Night.”

Two Minnesota friends, Zachary Quinn and Brian Keller, created Love Your Melon in 2012 as a segment of a class project at St. Thomas University. Their goal was to put a hat on every child battling cancer in America.

The program is a buy-one-give-one program: for every hat bought, a hat is given to a child battling cancer. 50 percent of all net proceeds from sales of Love Your Melon merchandise are donated to nonprofit organizations helping the fight with childhood cancer.

Love Your Melon is dedicated to helping support pediatric cancer research and supporting families. So far, Love Your Melon has donated $1.1 million and 75,000 hats, and have partnered with a variety of organizations, like the Rockies, to raise awareness.

It was a busy at Coors Field for melon night. The stadium was filled with people excited to see a baseball game and specifically to support the Love Your Melon organization. Danielle, a Colorado native and Love Your Melon fan, sported her new purple Love Your Melon beanie at the game. “I am so happy to be here supporting my favorite team and supporting a great cause,” Danielle said. “Go Rockies!”

Many in attendance had a similar excitement to Danielle’s. Some game-goers didn’t know that it was Love Your Melon Night before that night, like Jason who said, “From what I’ve heard, Love Your Melon is a cool organization. I’m glad I could be here to find out about it, and the game was awesome too.” Many people shared Jason’s sentiments and were more than happy to offer their love and support to the Love Your Melon organization.

The Rockies and Love Your Melon made some great hits on Saturday night and raised a lot of awareness for an amazing cause.

CU Denver also has a branch of Love Your Melon, dedicated to reaching students on Auraria Campus with this nation-wide platform for cancer research.