A True Survivor

Some of you know that in our little Monday night knitting group at Island Yarn, we have a celebrity mom. As in, she's the mom of a celebrity. Rochelle's son is Ethan Zohn, winner of Survivor Africa, the very popular reality tv show. Now, no matter what you might think of reality tv, Ethan's taken philanthropy and community outreach to a whole new level.

He's the founder of GrassRoots, a soccer based AIDS/HIV outreach education organization that uses the fundamentals of soccer to teach young Africans about safe sex and the dangers of unprotected sex. Just last year, he raised money for this cause by dribbling a soccer ball from Boston to Washington DC.

But, Ethan has cancer. We learned earlier this year as we watched his mom try to stay strong and help her youngest fight back against lymphoma. A round of chemo has not been successful and he's getting ready to begin a new phase in his treatment. As we rally around Rochelle, she and her other two sons are rallying around Ethan.

Via his mom, a knitter, we have been asked to help Ethan raise more funds for his organization and cancer charities by voting for him in GQ Magazine's “2009 Better Men Better World Search”. What could be better than someone who is fighting back against cancer and still only thinking of what he can do to help others? When so many asked "how can we help?", the response was to help him help others.

So, I need YOU to go vote for Ethan (he's a top 5 candidate) at:

http://www.thegentlemensfund.com/final_vote.asp.

Come back here after you vote, leave me a comment (please: be honest) with your vote and at the end of the week, I'll give out some prizes.