Tragedy to Opportunity
MBU senior and cancer survivor Matt Williams on fighting childhood cancer and despair through a thriving nonprofit he started in high school.
The Inspiration
When I was nine-years-old, I was diagnosed with a stage three ependymoma brain tumor. I was immediately sent to St. Louis Children’s Hospital for an emergency 10-hour brain surgery and three months of radiation therapy. Because of the cancer treatments, I lost my hair. Onlookers gawked when they saw a bald child walking around the city of St. Louis. To help me blend in around the city, individuals gave me hats.
When my radiation treatments ended, I went home to Vienna, Illinois and realized I had a collection of approximately 200 hats. When my hair began to grow back, I decided to sell the hats at a local fair for a donation of $5 to support research at Washington University School of Medicine. The leftover hats were then donated to kids in the hospital. I continued this effort as Matt’s Hats to make an impact in the children’s lives in addition to supporting efforts to treat and end childhood cancer. While I don’t sell hats anymore, Matt’s Hats collects hats for children with cancer and raises money to sponsor local cancer research.
Teen Entrepreneur
My mom tells the story of me when I was 14 years old, lying on my bed, surrounded by paperwork and on the phone with the IRS trying to figure out how to start a nonprofit. Matt’s Hats was originally just a project, but then I raised $5,000 then $10,000.
Understandably, I began to be asked for paperwork for tax deduction and if I had an official status. So, I decided to make Matt’s Hats official.
With that, I began to catch the entrepreneurial spirit. I realized Matt’s Hats is something with meaning to people.
At the time, nonprofits were difficult to start, so my mom and I just sat down and wrote out the paperwork over a summer and built this idea into an organization.
In high school, I had a lot of conversations about if I wanted to do Matt’s Hats long term. Because if I was going to quit, there was no reason to do all this paperwork, but I felt that this story wasn’t simply going to go away. I was blessed with a mentor named Rodney Gholson who would help me with a lot of questions about business, branding and simply being a good steward of people’s investments. I would then talk to other people who had started nonprofits or anyone with experience. I asked questions trying to absorb as much information as I could about the topic so I could do it on my own.
“I want each child to believe the cancer is an experience, not their identity. They are individuals with hope, promise and strength. And that’s an empowering thing.”
The Tipping Point
After coming to Missouri Baptist University, I began to leave Matt’s Hats behind. I told my parents they could do what they wanted with it but that I was going to focus on college and pursue so-called better things. When my story spread across campus, I was asked to speak at chapel and after that people just started asking how they could help. mbu faculty and staff made it evident to me that my story needed to continue. Despite working a couple jobs and taking classes, I began to work on Matt’s Hats again.
Since then, Matt’s Hats has continually grown. At first, I thought my nonprofit was not big enough, but fulfilling God’s purpose for me is the best thing I can do.
Now that I’m in college, I have advanced past only using tutorials and blind trial and error. While those are both fantastic ways to learn, at MBU I am immersed in a community of professionals who give me not only their personal advice, but, research and theory-based advice that is truly powerful. There are times when I will be sitting in class or my internship, and I will learn how to do something like edit a photo or design something, and as soon as I get back to my apartment, I sit down and apply it to Matt’s Hats. Having an organization to apply those concepts to has been incredibly beneficial for my learning experience and Matt’s Hats.
More than hats and cancer
When I relaunched Matt’s Hats in St. Louis, I needed to create a way to tell my story on the mass level. So, I worked with a video production company to recreate my story through video, built up the social media accounts, rebranded, launched a new website and built key partners within the St. Louis community.
Matt’s Hats is transitioning to focus less on hats and more about empowering children to take their struggle and use the experience as inspiration to better the world. My mantra is “Tragedy to Opportunity.” It is the biblical belief that someone can go through life, go through cancer, and walk away realizing their brush with cancer puts them in a unique position to help others. Now, the hat serves as a key to unlock the door to hospital rooms. Once we are inside, the children open a box designed to distract and spark their imagination, and the parents receive information to help guide conversations with that child to begin the process of converting the child’s mindset from tragedy to opportunity. I want each child to believe that cancer is an experience, not their identity. They are individuals with hope, promise and strength. And that’s an empowering thing.
For information on Matt’s Hats visit mattshats.org
