Love Your Melon co-founder Zachary Quinn — and many students following in his footsteps — want to make hospital stays more bearable for children fighting cancer.

Love Your Melon is a non-profit organization run by college students. Their mission is to put a hat on every “melon” battling cancer in America. For every hat they sell, one is given to a child.

“Without caring hospital staff, visitors and activities, a hospital room can feel like a prison. With Love Your Melon, I am on a mission to fix that,” Quinn said.

He said no matter what he’s going through personally, it doesn’t come close to the weight of fighting such a deadly disease.

“It is fulfilling and satisfying and it puts things in perspective,” he said. “We all have things that we worry about every day — encounters that irritate us, responsibilities that keep (us) from what we really want to do and events that set us back. But few of us have ever been stuck in a hospital room for months at a time.

“The amount of frustration, anxiety and sadness that children battling cancer and their families go through is unimaginable,” he said.

Education junior Chelsea Abbott picked up the torch in East Lansing in fall 2013. She became the campus ambassador for MSU and helped grow the organization.

Supply chain management senior Mallory Tyler said there’s a list of people waiting to join the organization.

“People want to contribute in any way they can,” she said. “The fact that there is a waiting line to be a part of the MSU Campus Crew is pretty incredible. People clearly are becoming as passionate about the promotion as we are.”

Recently the crew made a visit to Sparrow Hospital, where they passed out hats and played with children in isolation.