Hey FOTO Fam!
Not sure how many of you know me anymore so I guess I’ll introduce myself! My name is Erin & I graduated in May of 2021. During my time in FOTO I was the Member Relations chair as a sophomore, the Family Relations chair as a junior, & I was lucky enough to represent FOTO as a dancer in THON 2020 before 1. the world shut down and 2. PSU shipped me off to Hershey for nursing school. Being a member of FOTO shaped my college experience completely. I have very few memories from my time at Penn State that don’t include a member of FOTO & I hope that becomes a reality for all of you, too! FOTO introduced me to all of my best friends & I would probably be super boring and have no life without them so shoutout to them.
My little piece of inspiration for you guys is going to be telling you that FOTO is what you make of it. The more involved you get, the more likely you are to have an experience similar to mine (the best experience possible obv). Go to the family visits. Go to the fundraisers. Go to retreats!!! Post your DonorDrive excessively. Volunteer for icebreakers. Bake for the bake sales. These are all such easy ways to have fun and make friends while fighting for a cause so much bigger than yourself. Recruit your friends, neighbors, and strangers to join! There’s a good chance I personally recruited a lot of the seniors now (miss u love u) and they can probably tell you how much fun I had when I did that. I also recruited my brother into THON/FOTO and he’s now a Dancer Relations captain! Look for him on the stage in his yellow shirt swag doing the line dance every hour! Back to the real point, I’m a pediatric nurse now & I get to see every single day the impact fundraising has kids and families and it’s so so inspiring. I promise that if you give FOTO your all, FOTO will reward you. We have the BEST families who love meeting everyone & even our founders parents are so involved, which I have never heard of from any other org. FOTO is built different and you’ll see it soon if ya can’t tell already.
Finally wanna congratulate you guys on your NEW FAMILY! That’s such a huge deal & I’m so proud of you all. I know you’ll welcome them with open arms and show them just how lucky they are to be paired with the best org at Penn State!
I know you guys are already working hard towards your goal for February & I can’t wait to watch you guys pull off great things. I know this year won’t be any different than the last few (except maybe we chase that #1 spot👀) & I have all the faith in the world in you all! I’ll be up for THON this year so I can’t wait to see you all & hopefully meet some new faces! Please everyone feel free to reach out to me if you ever need anything, if you can’t tell I love to talk THON and Penn State <3
FTK always
Erin
