Have you ever seen those yellow sunscreen dispensers when you are at the beach or maybe at a ball field? The Walz family suffered a great loss but from that loss came the drive to make others aware of the dangers of melanoma. That is when the Joy of Life Foundation was created. John Walz talks about the reason behind the foundation.
“Unfortunately, back in February of twenty fifteen, I lost my wife to melanoma cancer and she was all about giving back. And so my three kids, Morgan, JP and Wes, wanted to do something where we could help give back. And so we created the Joy of Life Foundation. And the whole idea is to keep the money local. And so we are in like five surrounding counties. But the whole purpose of the Joy of Life Foundation is to help educate and promote melanoma and the awareness of skin cancer. Since we live in such a area where it can sneak up on you.”
Walz talks about the sunscreen dispensers.
“One of the things we do is we put up sunscreen dispensers and sunscreen in public areas where people may forget their sunscreen or run out or whatever. So we put them up, like in, uh, beach, public beach areas, ballparks. We’ve got them at several golf courses, several swim pads. So, uh, if people mention it, we get a dispenser in sunscreen out there.”
Walz says it takes a lot of work to maintain the dispensers and that is when the Spirit Lake Key club decided to step in. The Key club is doing a fundraiser for the entire month of December and key club member Summer Stoller talks about the fundraiser.
“The Spirit Lake Key Club is joining with the Joy of Life Foundation in order to raise money for buying sunscreen to fill up all the sunscreen dispensers around our town, and in the five other counties that the dispensers are located in. And so we are doing this during the whole month of December, and donations can be made through Venmo, cash or check. We have donation sites at Lakes Dermatology and Dakota Dermatology. Those are both in Spirit Lake. And then the Key Club is also setting up a donation table at every home Spirit Lake basketball game in December, and then two other places donations can be made are the Spirit Lake High School and Middle School offices.”
100% of the donations raised by the Spirit Lake Key Club fundraiser will go directly to the Joy of Life Foundation.
Click below to hear the full interview with John Walz, Summer Stoller and Liberty Sawyer
