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On Thursday, September 15th we were honored to perform our very first “Knighting Ceremony” in Portland, OR at Doernbechers Children’s Hospital. Our buddy, Blaze the Trail Cat accompanied us during our Knighting Ceremony, welcoming five courageous knights into our Mascots for a Cure family! We are excited to eventually welcome hundreds more of these brave and courageous kids who are battling this horrible disease.

On June 4th, 2016, Mascots for a Cure entered into our first major parade by creating a float for the Portland Starlight Parade.  Our Mascots for a Cure float was decked out in our signature purple and green lights, fog machines, a deejay, and more!  The best part about our float, and what made it stand out to the 325,000+ spectators and one million viewers on Fox 12, was the 16 mascots that we had on our float, led by our own Mascots for a Cure mascot, Sir Roland BraveHeart!  These mascots were also decked out from head to toe in neon lights as we were helping to “shine a light on childhood cancer.”  The cherry to top off our float was the Disney princesses we had alongside numerous superheroes.  Combined, we were able to create a wonderful amount of exposure for Mascots for a Cure and awareness for our fight against childhood cancer.  Due to the thousands of screaming kids who loved seeing our mascots, princesses, and superheroes, I think we also realized what it must be like to be Justin Bieber!  The Portland Starlight Parade is an event that we will certainly be looking forward to doing each and every year!

As part of our trip to Philadelphia, we were able to organize a hospital visit at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia.  I know that I can speak for our entire team when I say that this is hands down our favorite part about doing these events.  We were lucky, thankful, and extremely honored to team up with Jenna Paugh and the wonderful team over at CHOP.  We brought a total of 12 mascots to this hospital visit and were able to light up the faces of so many precious kids and their families, as well as the staff, doctors and nurses at this wonderful hospital.  Mascots danced with children in their Ryan Seacrest Studios, handed out t-shirts and stickers and took a lot of fun pictures.  It was a day that we will never forget and that we look forward to doing at many children’s hospitals across the nation.  There is no doubt about it that Mascots for a Cure’s number one goal is to create thousands and thousands of memories just like this all of which bring children and their families laughter, joy, hope and love!

Our last three attempts at a Guinness World Record all occurred in Portland, OR, which doesn’t have a lot of professional teams, semi pro teams, universities or even high schools compared to other states on the east coast.  We have been fortunate to work with some of the best professionals in the mascot world including Christopher Bruce, David Raymond, and Glenn Street.  These three men are characters themselves and are also the ultimate professionals.  Mascots for a Cure was lucky to be able to team up with these fine gentlemen in organizing our next attempt which was in Philadelphia on February 21st, 2016.  This time, we decided to attempt a Guinness World Record for “Largest Mascot Dance,” and we did this to a choreographed dance of the “Electric Slide.”  This record was again set in, you guessed it, Japan, and had a total of 134 mascots.  We were able to gather 138 synchronized dancing mascots to “unofficially” finally break a Guinness World Record.  Months later after our record attempt, we finally heard back from the people at Guinness World Record and due to a few technicalities, we ended up missing this record by a handful of mascots!

As far as awareness from this event goes, we knocked it out of the park.  News stations across the nation were talking about Mascots for a Cure and our Guinness World Record attempt in Philadelphia!  What all of these world record attempts have taught us is to NEVER give up on our dreams and our goals.  Never!  As a team we will continue to persevere, learn, adjust, and work harder each and every time we attempt one of these fun world records.  During our trip to the East Coast, we were able to meet so many wonderful people from across the nation.  We realized the power that Mascots for a Cure has to be able to unite characters from all kinds of organizations and from all different cities.  We had a common goal and purpose of coming together to fight childhood cancer.  Most importantly, we began to realize that Mascots for a Cure isn’t just a non-profit organization that raises awareness and funds for childhood cancer.  We are a family with similar passions, goals and dreams!

In 2014 we were lucky enough and extremely honored to team up with and work with the Portland Rose Festival Foundation in Portland, OR.  The Portland Rose Festival Foundation has such a rich history of creating wonderful parades and events for the Portland metro area and the State of Oregon as a whole.  In fact, they have been creating parades such as the Portland Starlight Parade and Grand Floral Parade for over 100 years!  What this small team of organizers and leaders is able to do is simply amazing and truly inspirational.

On June 7th, 2014, we attempted yet another Guinness World Record for the “Largest Mascot Gathering”.  We figured that the 3rd time was the charm, right?  Well, since our 2012 attempt of beating Germany’s record of 167 mascots, this record was since broken twice both by Tokyo, Japan, and is now a record of 376 mascots in one location!  Wow!  Can you imagine 376 furry and goofy characters in one location?!  We did, but unfortunately we fell short of this enormous feat! We quickly adopted this Guinness World Record for the Largest Mascot Gathering as “our thing.”  It became a way that we could raise both awareness and funds to fight childhood cancer.  It was a world record with a purpose.  We also adopted the positive attitude that cancer patients never ever give up, and so neither will we. If it takes us 10 attempts at this silly, goofy, and larger than life record, then we will continue to fight until we bring this World Record to the United States where it belongs!

After our amazing 2011 Relay for Life experience, we decided to see if there might be a Guinness World Record for the “Largest Mascot Gathering”. Sure enough there was, and this record was set in Germany with 167 total mascots. We decided to go for it and think big! Thinking big is something that we do every day at Mascots for a Cure! We realize that life is too short not to do otherwise. In 2012 we attempted a Guinness World Record for the “Largest Mascot Gathering” and successfully brought 161 total mascots to the Eugene / Springfield Relay for Life. That’s right: we missed this crazy record attempt by only SIX mascots! Six! However, not all was a loss even though we were not able to break this difficult and crazy world record. We were able to entertain over 8,000 participants; we had a large local media presence which in turn helped us to create a wonderful amount of awareness for not only Mascots for a Cure but the American Cancer Society; we had a small but significant part in helping the Eugene / Springfield Relay for Life go from the #8 Relay for Life in the entire WORLD to the #3 Relay for Life in the entire WORLD; we had a positive impact on kids from ages 3 to 93 and we were able to raise over $7,000 over the three years with our Mascots for a Cure Relay for Life team.

We attempted this record again in 2013 and ended up falling short yet again. However, we learned a lot as a team and as an organization. We took the good that we did and the love, joy, and hope that we were able to spread and turned it into a charity organization that thousands of people and mascots across the nation could rally behind. How powerful is that?! We were able to take a silly idea, turn it into a win-win scenario for all involved and have successfully created a brand and a non-profit organization that will end up changing thousands of children’s lives! We believe that the only way we will ever find a cure for childhood cancer, and cancer in general, is to work together and to help each other.

The Eugene / Springfield Relay for Life is where Mascots for a Cure originally started back in 2011. This is where our hate for cancer, passion to make a difference, and our love of helping others who are battling this terrible disease, grew into what Mascots for a Cure is today! In 2011 we created Mascots for a Cure from the idea of creating a “lighter” side to cancer. We wanted to bring laughter, joy, hope and love to the participants at Relay for Life because we know that a large part of battling cancer is keeping a positive attitude and outlook in regard to what you are going through. We know just how serious cancer is from our own personal loss due to this disease — a loss that too many of us have experienced and continue to experience.

In July of 2011, we not only had a Black Hawk helicopter do a flyover and land at our Relay for Life, not only had fun competitions like a celebrity watermelon eating contest, water balloon toss, mascot tug of war competition, fun themed laps, and a lot more, but . . . we brought 16 larger than life characters to interact with cancer survivors and their families / teams. Seeing that this idea was a huge success and being that it had such a positive impact on so many, is what turned Mascots for a Cure from a fun idea and activity to a non-profit organization that helps fight childhood cancer.