What does it mean to be bold and go gold? It means that nine days is enough time for anything and that Saints will support anyone.
It was a Thursday night in September last year when her phone rang. Maybe it was the time of day or the tone in her mom's voice, but Ava Vesey '28 immediately braced for bad news. When she hung up the phone, she knew she couldn't make the cancer go away, and from her Siena dorm room, she couldn't be there for John or his family. But that night, she started to put her plan together.
Ava's mom and her high school best friend never stopped being best friends. Every summer, their families would get together for pool parties and barbecues, and that’s how Ava got to know John Gendek, who was just a few years younger than her. In 2023, John was diagnosed with a rare form of brain cancer. With treatment, he got better, and then in September of last year it got way worse.
"When I got that call, and I found out he was having a really bad flare up, I just felt like I needed to do something. Since I'm on the water polo team, I thought about asking my teammates to record a message that I could send to him. But then I thought, I'm also a Saint Orientation Leader, what if I get my students involved in something for John? What if I get the other Orientation leaders involved? What if..."
Quickly, Ava pivoted from a video to something much bigger. When she was in the 6th grade, Ava lost her grandfather to bladder cancer. To honor his memory, they participated in a walk that raised money and awareness for her grandfather's particular type of cancer. Ava thought about organizing a 5K on campus to show support for John. But that would take time and resources and marketing and logistics, and would it even be possible? Ava hosted the first annual Be Bold, Go Gold walk on September 27 last year... exactly nine days after she got that Thursday night call. More than 200 members of the Siena community showed up.
"John and his family were shocked that so many people would give up their Saturday morning to walk or run for someone they had never met. It showed him how much he was loved. My goal was to do that for him before he passed."
John passed away shortly after the event on October 24, 2025. He was just 16 years old. The first run was a tribute to John that he could feel, the second run – and the ones that haven't happened yet – was about preserving his memory... and raising money. The inaugural event wasn't much of a fundraiser. A grand total of $6 was put into a collection bucket. This year, Ava partnered with the Student Senate and Alex's Lemonade Stand, a foundation for childhood cancer. At the second annual Be Bold, Go Gold event on September 19, Ava raised $1,280.
"I started the event so that John would feel loved. And now, the way people come together for this, it shows me how loved I am, and how I fit into the Siena community. It shows you how people here would do anything for their friends and their classmates."
Ava thought about applying to Penn State because, when you grow up in Perkasie, PA, that's just what you do. But Ava chose Siena for water polo and hoped it would be a good fit.
"I think about that decision all of the time and how it changed my life. I'm so thankful for my team and so thankful for Siena."
Ava – a double major in communications-marketing and Spanish – hopes to parlay her experience as an event planner into a career planning events for a non-profit, like the Special Olympics. But first, she'll have one more Be Bold, Go Gold event to run next year, and then she hopes to pass the race off to someone else. And as long as Saints are running for John, they're keeping his memory going. His family is eternally grateful.