Long Beach State University Athletics
Former Dirtbags Alum Charles Ruiz Looks To Help Combat Cancer
5/29/2020 8:43:00 AM | Baseball
Former pitcher for Long Beach State teams up with Leukemia and Lymphoma Society to raise money.
Looking to provide support for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society (LLS) former Dirtbags alum Charles Ruiz was nominated for the organization's Man or Woman of the Year 2020 Campaign.
The goal of the campaign is for candidates to raise funds over a 10-week period for LLS in honor of local blood cancer survivors and the Boy and Girls of the Year. The title is awarded to the candidate whose team raises the most funds during the competition.
For Ruiz, the campaign allows him to give back to a cause that has affected loved ones around him. With his godfather, mother-in-law and a former teammate on his mind, Ruiz accepted the nomination and is part of the Greater Bay Area campaign.
The campaign was set to begin on March 18, but with the COVID-19 pandemic the campaign start was postponed. During this time Ruiz had to consider his options and what it meant to move forward with the fundraiser.
"I almost backed out," Ruiz said. "Then they announced we're going to kick this off again in May and I was like 'Great, May or June do it sometime in the Summer, that's better.' That would've been way better than right now. And then they reached out and said we're going to kick off on April 15th. And I was like oh no I don't feel good about that."
After speaking with a couple fellow candidates, Ruiz decided to move forward with the campaign when it started in April.
"How can we do something that brings people light and some happiness," Ruiz said of moving forward.
With a shift to a completely online platform, Ruiz has found the benefits of not being able to have face-to-face events.
"It's been oddly inspiring to see how much more reach you can have in the digital world," Ruiz said. "All the in-person events were going to probably raise more dollars, it was going to be easier to get together larger funds. But, when we decided to move forward, it was like how can we do this in a social way where instead of asking people for a lot money, because right now I don't even feel comfortable doing that. I just asked how we can do something small, a dollar here, and a dollar there. Five dollars here, five dollars there and reach people we may never have talked to in person."
With an emphasis on doing something that could be done digitally, Ruiz turned to doing work out classes online and social media campaigns where he challenged people he knows to do the #LLSquats challenge.
This challenge involved doing five squats, donating five dollars and tagging five people on social media.
"For me it was about promoting small businesses and other people's health and wellness," Ruiz said. "And then while we're at it, let's raise some funds for blood cancer research."
Ruiz became involved with LLS after he attended the organization's Light the Night in San Francisco which is a campaign where participants come together to walk along the Embarcadero near Giants Stadium to raise money to help LLS fund research to find blood cancer cures.
"I was currently in a moment where I didn't know how to deal with the loss that I had and then when this happened, the night of this walk inspired me to be vulnerable to open up and introduce myself and tell people like hey I'm struggling with it," Ruiz said. "But what that did was it opened up other people to talk and people that I've never talked to or people that I just met, that were new colleagues of mine. And you built this relationship and this powerful message of solidarity with people I never knew before and that night my family and my friends came along with my wife's family. It was just such an enriching moment of community and solidarity and that energy from that night stuck with me."
To read more about Ruiz's journey, visit https://pages.lls.org/mwoy/gba/bayarea20/cruiz0.Â
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The goal of the campaign is for candidates to raise funds over a 10-week period for LLS in honor of local blood cancer survivors and the Boy and Girls of the Year. The title is awarded to the candidate whose team raises the most funds during the competition.
For Ruiz, the campaign allows him to give back to a cause that has affected loved ones around him. With his godfather, mother-in-law and a former teammate on his mind, Ruiz accepted the nomination and is part of the Greater Bay Area campaign.
The campaign was set to begin on March 18, but with the COVID-19 pandemic the campaign start was postponed. During this time Ruiz had to consider his options and what it meant to move forward with the fundraiser.
"I almost backed out," Ruiz said. "Then they announced we're going to kick this off again in May and I was like 'Great, May or June do it sometime in the Summer, that's better.' That would've been way better than right now. And then they reached out and said we're going to kick off on April 15th. And I was like oh no I don't feel good about that."
After speaking with a couple fellow candidates, Ruiz decided to move forward with the campaign when it started in April.
"How can we do something that brings people light and some happiness," Ruiz said of moving forward.
With a shift to a completely online platform, Ruiz has found the benefits of not being able to have face-to-face events.
"It's been oddly inspiring to see how much more reach you can have in the digital world," Ruiz said. "All the in-person events were going to probably raise more dollars, it was going to be easier to get together larger funds. But, when we decided to move forward, it was like how can we do this in a social way where instead of asking people for a lot money, because right now I don't even feel comfortable doing that. I just asked how we can do something small, a dollar here, and a dollar there. Five dollars here, five dollars there and reach people we may never have talked to in person."
With an emphasis on doing something that could be done digitally, Ruiz turned to doing work out classes online and social media campaigns where he challenged people he knows to do the #LLSquats challenge.
This challenge involved doing five squats, donating five dollars and tagging five people on social media.
"For me it was about promoting small businesses and other people's health and wellness," Ruiz said. "And then while we're at it, let's raise some funds for blood cancer research."
Ruiz became involved with LLS after he attended the organization's Light the Night in San Francisco which is a campaign where participants come together to walk along the Embarcadero near Giants Stadium to raise money to help LLS fund research to find blood cancer cures.
"I was currently in a moment where I didn't know how to deal with the loss that I had and then when this happened, the night of this walk inspired me to be vulnerable to open up and introduce myself and tell people like hey I'm struggling with it," Ruiz said. "But what that did was it opened up other people to talk and people that I've never talked to or people that I just met, that were new colleagues of mine. And you built this relationship and this powerful message of solidarity with people I never knew before and that night my family and my friends came along with my wife's family. It was just such an enriching moment of community and solidarity and that energy from that night stuck with me."
To read more about Ruiz's journey, visit https://pages.lls.org/mwoy/gba/bayarea20/cruiz0.Â
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