Being a college student is tough enough with the daily struggles of trying to juggle academics, extracurricular activities and a social life all at the same time.
As busy students we always feel drained. Well, picture adding on an illness on top of that. Imagine waking up various mornings lightheaded, your muscles weak and maybe even partially paralyzed. Imagine living your everyday life but adding on the possibility of randomly passing out at any moment.
As if college wasn’t already challenging, students with chronic illnesses have to face situations like these, some even worse, on a daily basis.
Chronic Change is a new student organization started by Amanda Hankins’ first year Lead Scholars class with a goal to help students who have chronic illnesses.
The inspiration behind this organization is UCF student Stacy Young. Stacy battles mitochondrial disease: a defect in how our bodies produce energy.
To put it in a simple way, her cells always run on low energy.
Stacy’s parents homeschooled her because of the fear of her passing out in random places or other similar things occurring to her. When it came to college, Stacy wanted to go out on her own. She wanted to “gain her independence.”
With this big step came big responsibility, both personally and financially. Stacy realized that she needed a service dog and assistance due to her illness. Unfortunately, the service dog Stacy needs ranged at $20,000. She turned to her university for help only to quickly find out that there was no organization on campus that could help her. When her Lead class and peers heard about this, they soon jumped at the opportunity and Chronic Change was born.
According to their Facebook page, their mission statement is “to support and provide effective means for students with chronic illness to live and function independently and successfully.”
Stacy’s lead class spoke very highly of her. They described her as the sweetest person ever, an angel, and even an excellent baker (although she cannot eat her own creations due to a strict diet). “She’s an excellent baker. I wish I could eat everything she bakes for the rest of my life,” says Bianca Ungerman.
KnightNews.com asked the class to describe their movement and goal in one word. The top two were “change” and “inspiration”.
“I think it’s very important that we’re able to do this as students. We’re able to see that here at UCF anything is possible and we don’t have boundaries,” said student Tai-Lyn Porboosingh.
Word about Chronic Change is spreading mostly though social media. Chronic Change has received positive feedback and messages thanking them because of the lack awareness of this illness at UCF.
“Our long term goal is to become a 501c3 non-profit organization, and we want to become a permanent branch of the UCF Disability Services,” said Aylene Knigh, who even chose to do her class speech on Chronic Change.
“Having a disability myself, I feel like this is a very positive action,” says member Juliana Hern.
If you wish to support this up and coming organization, consider attending their partial proceeds night at Burger U on campus tonight from 3-9 p.m. Make sure to bring this flyer with you!
To stay updated with Chronic Change, like their Facebook page or consider making a donation to their movement.
