With the 2011 Carry On Campaign coming to a close, I’ve asked some of our volunteers to share their stories — why they volunteers, how they raised their money, etc. The series kicks off with Tim Brayton’s story.

Tim is a testicular cancer survivor. He’s also a huge movie buff with a knack for writing reviews, which he does so often on his blog, Antagony & Ecstasy. As you’ll read below, he decided to use his blog as a way to pull in money for the American Cancer Society. Along the way, he opened up about his fight in a way that he never had before. In the end, he netted over $1,000 for the ACS.

Volunteer Spotlight: Tim Brayton

Raising money for the Carry On Campaign was personally satisfying to me, and not just as a cancer survivor giving back to the world – though without question, it was more than satisfying on those grounds.  But beyond that, it reminded me of an essential truth, that people are basically good when you give them the chance to prove it.

I run a blog; a film blog, to be precise, where I review new and classic movies and sometimes weigh in on other movie-related issues, and while I won’t claim to be a major player in the field, I have my fair share of regular readers. When I agreed to raise my $100 for the campaign, my first thought was to ask those same readers: let’s say just 20 of them each contributed $5, that’s the total right there. And I was fairly certain that more than 20 people would contribute, for more than $5 a head, too.

For I had a Scheme: people would write to me fairly often, asking, “Why haven’t you reviewed this movie? I’d love it if you’d review that movie.” I decided to ask my readers to put their money where their mouth was: for a minimum donation of $15, I would write a custom review.  I figured that way, I was sure to get to $100 fairly soon.

And did I ever.  By the time all the dust had settled, I had received donations from forty-six individuals, totally $1115 exactly. Unfortunately, some of that got taken back in handling fees by PayPal, but that still left me with $1071.52 to give to the American Cancer Society.

And there I’d stop the tale, more than proud of myself, but for one thing: it wasn’t even the money that was most satisfying.  To kick off donation season, I wrote an essay, talking about my experience with cancer, and what it felt like five years later to be a survivor. It was the hardest thing I’ve ever written: but I don’t know if I’ve ever written anything that felt so cleansing. And the kind words that friends and total strangers shared with me afterwards were easily the sweetest part of the whole process. It was both humbling and honoring to open myself so fully (certainly, I was terrified to publish that essay), and be rewarded with such warmth and generosity, both for myself and for a tremendously worthy cause. I’m so glad that I could have been a part of it.