When Jena was 10 years old, she lost both her grandfathers to cancer. This made a profound impact on her at a young age, and has fueled her commitment to the fight against cancer for more than 15 years. After mourning her grandfathers’ deaths, Jena signed up a Relay for Life event, an annual fundraiser organized by the American Cancer Society (ACS), in her hometown of Winder, Georgia. The next year, at age of 11, Jena became her county’s youngest Relay for Life team captain, recruiting friends and neighbors to walk the Relay for Life with her and raise money for ACS.
Since her first team was organized in 1999, Jena’s involvement in Relay for Life and ACS became a year-round commitment, recruiting team members, organizing fundraisers, and helping to publicize the Relay for Life. In 2002, Jena started her first nonprofit organization to benefit ACS called Ornaments4Cure, in which she and her team members created tinsel-filled Christmas ornaments and sold them at fundraisers. Through Ornaments4Cure, Jena sold more than 2,000 ornaments and raised $6,000 for ACS.
In addition to Ornaments4Cure, Jena organized 33 fundraisers as a Relay for Life team captain, including bake sales, car washes, yard signs, lock-ins, dances, and the Princess Tiara Tea Party, a fun dress-up event for girls. By 2005, Jena had been recognized with 21 American Cancer Society Volunteer awards, and began speaking at area schools and community centers about youth involvement and ACS.
Today, after raising a total of $88,000 for ACS, Jena now focuses on her own nonprofit, HBBQs, Inc., which organizes noncompetitive pageants for children facing cancer and other serious challenges. Although no longer a Relay for Life team captain, Jena still mentors team captains who need guidance on getting peers involved and planning successful events to raise as much money as possible to fight this devastating illness.
