Dressed in a camouflage military t-shirt, David Fajgenbaum (SNHS ‘07) looks ready for battle.
His battle can be exhausting. “Last year, I was getting four hours of sleep every night, driving four hours to get home every weekend, taking seven classes, playing football and trying to organize a fledgling AMF,” Fajgenbaum said.
Fajgenbaum, who lost his mother Anne Marie to brain cancer last fall, is a founding member of Ailing Mothers and Fathers. AMF began as a support network for about twenty Georgetown students with sick or deceased parents. Now in its second year, Fajgenbaum’s organization is poised to go national.
So far, 19 other universities have expressed interest in forming their own chapters, including UNC Chapel Hill, the University of Texas and the University of Florida. Interest in AMF soared after Fajgenbaum brought his cause to national attention at several medical conferences this summer.
But this is just a start. One day, Fajgenbaum said, he hopes he will be able turn his group into a non-profit organization with chapters at universities nationwide.
If the response from the Georgetown community is any indication, his chances of success are high.
“When we set up table in Red Square last year, in one month we had over a hundred people signed up to help us do service in memory of loved ones,” Fajgenbaum said. “Now, we have about 250 people, including faculty members and just other students who want to help out.”
Fajgenbaum believes service projects with personal meaning for the grieving are a powerful method of channeling pain. “There are lots of programs for little kids who lose a parent,” Fajgenbaum said. “But by the time we get to college, there’s no support network. We are expected to be independent.”
“The sixth leading cause of declining academic performance is the death of a family member or friend in the last year,” he added. “That’s huge.”
AMF boasts a new service fund this year as well to help cover costs when the group sends condolences and donations to Georgetown students and their families following a parent’s death, Fajgenbaum said.
The additional money will also help widen the group’s scope beyond the Georgetown campus. Community-wide service projects, particularly those dedicated to the research and cure of diseases that have taken the lives of family members of those in the Georgetown community, are another goal on Fajgenbaum’s list.
AMF appeals to more than just those who have suffered. Most students in the organization, Fajgenbaum said, do not have a sick parent.
“At an event for tumor patients in Upper Senate Park last year, people were asking students, ‘Why are you here? Who do you know who has brain cancer?’” Fajgenbaum said. “The students replied, ‘We don’t have any personal connection, but our friend does. And we want to help.’”
