Business school students raise money to send 13-year-old brain cancer patient to Maui

The “Ready, Fire, Aim” project is a competition between pairs of students who create a product or service. The goal is to generate profit and improve the students’ entrepreneurial skills.

However, the project has a much larger vision.

Jim Kitchen, entrepreneur-in-residence at the Kenan-Flagler Business School, tasked his class with raising $40,000 in two weeks for charity. Some of the money will send 13-year-old Will, a brain cancer patient, to the Maui Invitational Tournament in November.

“The project is really about the intersection of profit and purpose,” Kitchen said.

The remaining money, after sending Will to Hawaii, will go towards the Community Empowerment Fund, which assists local homeless people transition to home ownership.

Some groups in the project used the football game on Saturday to bring their products to the market. Phil Piasecki, a sophomore pre-business major, and his partner sold rally towels at the game for $5 each.

Piasecki said the time constraints, limited resources and competition between students made the project difficult.

“But luckily, it was all alleviated by the fact that we were doing it all for a great cause and we were all pretty much on the same team in that way, trying to raise money for two great causes,” Piasecki said.

He said the project was realistic because of the challenges, and the humanitarian goals made it worth his time.

“I would just say this whole project, to me, I found it really valuable, because it’s kind of an extreme version of what an entrepreneur faces,” Piasecki said.

Marianne Cruzat, a sophomore pre-business major, said the project has not been easy due to time constraints.

Her group started a hashtag, #ThumbsUp4Will, to generate awareness for the project and sold leis at Saturday’s football game. She said their slogan was to bring “Hawaii to Kenan Stadium for Will.”

Other students used a different approach. Juniors Brandon Kang and Ayush Makhija raffled off a brand-new Xbox One S and marketed their project on Friday in the Pit.

Makhija said Will’s wish has become their wish.

“He’s a huge Tar Heel fan and his wish is to go to the Maui Jim Invitational in Hawaii and just cheer on the Heels, so we just wanna make that wish come true,” she said.

Kitchen said this project, which he has assigned for several years, has become very important to him and his students.

“If I can take these students for one second, get them to take their career choice, their life, you know, understand exactly what should guide them through this project, it’s very fulfilling,” Kitchen said.

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