Cooing, a baby stares up at her red-haired, fair-skinned mother carefully applying sunscreen before leaving the house. This is how sophomore Pasha Selig’s mom introduced her to sun protection. Ever since she was young, preventing skin cancer has been important to Selig.
“Our family always had a distinct smell of sunscreen — the Coola one that you spray on,” Selig said. “It was this entire thing we had — the sunscreen stickers you put on your skin to know when to reapply. It was UV shirts and hats whenever we had to leave the house.”
Selig said growing up in an environment like this led her to create skin cancer prevention organization Have Fun in the Sun at the end of her freshman year, focusing on early prevention of skin cancer through educating elementary-aged students. When she was writing and delivering her Service and Activism Learning Proposal for history class, she knew she wanted to incorporate the importance of sun protection into her project.
“I was thinking about what I thought was important,” Selig said. “I love the health aspect of children and was thinking of more creative ways that people don’t really shine a light on.”
With the help of a few professionals over the summer, Selig was able to turn Have Fun in the Sun into a 501(c)3 nonprofit, an organization that is exempt from federal taxes, furthering her goal of providing sun protection education to elementary kids. She provides online resources as well as crafts, targeted towards different age ranges that specify the steps to take to increase sun protection.
Selig’s mentor Tracy Poverstein said she notices Selig’s creative approach to preventing skin cancer.
“She is making little activity books they can go through to interest them [in] sun protection,” Poverstein says. “She’s being really proactive rather than just waiting to donate to skin cancer [foundations].”
Selig is a member of Archer’s Service Squad, where students plan events such as the Archer in Action fair, which inform the Archer community about service opportunities. Interim Service Squad faculty leader Brynn Estrada said when she was looking at Archer, she was impressed by the joy and passion Archer girls demonstrated with service and activism.
“It was really cool for me to see that these kids have something they care about, because it shows me how they’re making a change in this world,” Estrada says. “They’re able to come together and bring their service to a bigger scale at Archer.”
Estrada oversees Archer’s service program, including Selig’s organization, and helps ninth grade SALP projects. Utilizing the resources Archer provides to strengthen service organizations helped Selig organize and run Have Fun in the Sun.
“Service Squad brings such great service opportunities to the Archer community,” Selig said. “We help facilitate the ability for, A, people to be more eager about service and B, to be able to have better volunteer experiences.”
To continue giving back to her community and underprivileged youth, Selig’s organization is targeting a younger age range to start educating about the early prevention of skin cancer and the essential role sun protection plays.
“I plan on going to elementary schools and integrating more sun-safe habits,” Selig said. “Long term wise, I would love to be part of a company where we can help and find children who need more access to sunscreen … It is obviously very expensive.”
The mentorship and guidance Selig receives within Service Sqaud contribute to her personality, Selig said, causing her to maintain a quiet leadership which can be essential for staying organized and productive. Poverstein said Selig’s caring and kind personality add to her ability to lead and organize
“She seems to really understand how fortunate we all are to be here at Archer, and you know that she wants to give back in some way,” Poverstein said. “She’s getting in there early and trying to help people before they would ever get there.”
Izzie Erickson • Jan 27, 2025 at 5:48 pm
This is amazing Josephine!!! Great job!