Sadie Chapman

Professor Isabell Garcia

English 134

18 October 2022

Gabby Hauptman

Gabrielle Hauptman is a first year here at Cal Poly, and we both live in the same residence

hall. I met her in the first week of living here and she is very open about the work she did back

home with everyone meets. She made sure to make her charity work, which consumed a

significant amount of time in her life, known to all because of the level of pride that came with it.

She started telling everyone the basics of her story and which charities she committed herself to

but after talking to her further I learned much more about it. Gabby and I became friends after a

few weeks of being here and I knew I could learn more about her experiences with charity work

and what it meant to her through interviewing her to get a deeper understanding of how

important it was.

Gabby explained how throughout highschool she worked with multiple charities and she

dedicated countless hours even before high school when she was in middle school. The charity

that she spent the most time with was NEGU, which stands for “Never Ever Give Up.” This is a

charity that puts money and work towards children cancer patients. They did things like make

blankets, care cards, Joy Jars and made hospital visits as well to the kids who stayed hospitalized

for long periods of time.

The background of NEGU is about Jessie Joy Rees, the founder, who was diagnosed with

cancer at age eleven and was fortunately able to beat it, survive, and start her foundation in her

later years with her dad. Her experience with having cancer at such a young age really
demotivated her and killed her happiness, joy, and fun as a child: which are the key words you

think of when looking back on a happy and fulfilling childhood. The goal of the foundation is to

make the experience of having cancer at such a young age even slightly less miserable. They had

fundraisers and marches and even workshops to raise money to put towards their cause. Gabby

was apart of one of these fundraisers as well, one they called, “I NEGU.”

The image above is depicting Gabby, on the bottom, and one of her fellow NEGU volunteers.

From first glance, all you see is two girls with something written on their hands. They’re clearly

posing for a photo in their high school shirts, but after initial takes we see that they’re most
definitely posing for something that they stand for and are representing. On their hands, they

have “I NEGU” and this is something that needs to be looked into further in order to understand.

After looking into this picture more and getting information from Gabby, this was a picture

meant to raise money for the charity, NEGU. This is a charity that is meant to raise money for

children cancer patients and for this picture specifically, every time it was posted with a specific

hashtag, twenty five dollars was donated to NEGU. Gabby was meant to promote this picture in

order to get it reposted as many times as possible with the hashtag so she could raise as much

money as possible for this charity. Gabby wanted to be a part of the change with NEGU in order

to make the lives of children cancer patients more comfortable and also raise money to support

cancer research in hopes for a cure or something of the sort.

NEGU was especially important to Gabby because of how close it hit to home. When

describing her story, she explained that her mom had a twin sister who was unfortunately

diagnosed with cancer at age twelve and didn’t end up winning the long fought battle. “Working

with the foundation so closely and even bringing my mom into the events and doing the activities

and events with her made our relationship stronger and even helped me feel more connected to

my aunt that I never got to meet,” said Gabby. Gabby even got to meet Jessie and her dad and

worked with them directly to host an event for and through her high school that allowed for

students and the community who weren’t a part of NEGU to make a change and help make Joy

Jars. Joy Jars were little jars filled with nick nacks and goodies meant to put a smile on the

children’s face during their chemo treatments. She hosted this event at her school and the turnout

was incredible, “It was more than I ever would have expected to come since it was just

something I was trying to do to make a difference and help NEGU as much as I could,” Gabby

claimed.
 Putting in this work for NEGU and other charities made Gabby want to continue this path of

change outside of high school as well. All throughout her life, Gabby struggles with mental

health. Not only her but her family members as well grew up struggling with their mental health,

her sister who has aspergers and Gabby herself who wrestled with depression, anxiety, and as far

as an eating disorder challenged them for many years. Gabby grew up talking to many therapists

and counselors who were trying to help her get through her tough times. She said, “Talking to

counselors and therapists my whole life definitely helped, but I never fully felt like they

understood me and what exactly I was going through.” This is something that she Gabby felt a

lot of people going through similar situations would feel and that if they had someone to talk to

that had gone through the same or similar situations it would help them more so than “someone

trained to understand” their experiences.

With this in mind, Gabby wanted to make a change to this. Gabby has already started and

planned out how she is going to start her own foundation which will be a mentor program.

Gabby has issued the idea to start a program that allows for people who have experienced mental

health challenges to become mentors to be able to help others and talk them through their

experience so they have someone who first hand experienced what they went through. She has

already