University of Florida sophomore David Nassau, inspired by 'How I Met Your Mother,' creates 'Hopping 4 A Cure' charity for MS cure
David Nassau is a native of Coral Springs, Florida and a sophomore at the Innovation Academy at the University of Florida. He is a devoted fan of the CBS sitcom How I Met Your Mother, which will air its final episode after a nine-season run on Monday, March 31.
In high school, his love for the show and his father's diagnosis with multiple sclerosis inspired him to create a charity called "Hopping 4 A Cure," a nonprofit that hosts hopscotch tournaments. Nassau and his charity donate the proceeds to help families and individuals affect by MS through college scholarships, caregiver support and more. The charity has raised approximately $30,000 since its inception.
Part of Nassau's mission is to inform the creators, cast and crew of How I Met Your Mother of their influence on his life and the lives of those he has helped. To that end, the nonprofit has been using the hashtag #HIMYMcharity to spread the word. Every Monday until the show ends, "Hopping 4 A Cure" will host trivia on the show with the hashtags #HIMYM and #HIMYMcharity from 7:45 p.m. to 9 p.m. Eastern.
More information on the charity is available here, and the organization's next event at the University of Florida is March 15.
Nassau took the time to speak to MStars about the charity's creation and growth, and he also offered his thoughts and theories about the show. For the record, his favorite episode (if he had to pick one) is the pilot because it sets the tone for the entire series. His favorite character is a tie between Ted and Barney, because most people who meet him say that he is a combination of the two.
How did you first become a fan of How I Met Your Mother?
It was a while back, almost around the year they started in 2005 when I went to a sleep away camp in Georgia on a long bus ride. The driver turned on this TV show, and whether it was just out of us not wanting to talk to each other or card games were getting boring, we started to watch this show. I started to pay attention to it when I got home, about a year later. I saw it on TV and I realized that it was being aired and I realized I was already a few seasons out and I wanted to catch back up.
Around 2008, I became friends with this one kid named Gary in eighth grade. I showed it to him and he loved it. It was their 100th episode, where it had the spontaneous dance and song. We went out and bought all the other seasons and had marathon parties where we started at the first season and worked our way up. Since our freshman year of high school, we've been watching every episode every week.
What do you think of the final season so far? Do you have any expectations for the finale?
The final episode is obviously is where they're going to push off until when [Ted and The Mother] meet, or maybe they'll meet in the episode before that, but we're still waiting to find out what the mothers name is. Everything they've been giving us has been so brilliant. Back in the first episode, it started with bringing in Robin, and now they're meeting and Barney and Robin's wedding. I think the writing is...so much of it is smart and thought out.
This season so far has been a little more filler than I would have liked, but now it's getting really intense and I'm really enjoying it. When the Mother was singing the song [La Vie en rose in the 200th episode] and it panned over to Ted and it was the first time he heard her sing, it was very emotional. But I think the series will end on a high note when they introduce the Mother's name or they'll tell us something new about her.
What specifically spurred you to create this charity and when did you do it?
This all started back in 2010. I got on Facebook and there was an event called "International Suit Up Day" where all you had to do was where a suit. I showed it to my friend Gary and we looked at each other and we said we have to do this. We decided to wear a suit to school and we were going to tell people we were the first two members of our varsity hopscotch team rather than tell them we did it because of a TV show.
We got to school that day, and people were asking questions like "Who do you play?" and "What are the rules?" So we made up a story where I became the speed guy and he became the endurance guy. We pretended to play a rival high school. A teacher had suited up with us and she became our fake varsity hopscotch coach.
We told my mom and she said what we have going on is great, but let's try to make it something bigger. So we decided to make it a charity event and implement these fake rules into the event and donate all the money to a cause. Because my dad was diagnosed with MS around eight or nine years ago, we contacted the National Multiple Sclerosis Society. We suited up on Oct. 13, 2010 and on Jan. 31 2011 we had our first event. It was kind of a quick turnaround but we raised about $6,000. Friends, family, and other businesses in town participated and it was a great success.
How has the charity grown since then?
We thought it would be a fun one-time thing, but we got some news coverage on that. We got interviewed by CBS down in Miami. A little bit later, we said let's blow it up to a bigger scale. So we ended up getting other friends involved. We added a fourth way to play hopscotch called "Extreme Hopscotch" and in that tournament we made $10,000. We expanded to a local middle school where we raised another couple thousand in our senior year.
It wasn't until a little bit after that I started taking it really seriously. At first it was a joke about how we could push the limit. Then college applications came out, and Gary went to Florida State. I go to Florida so I don't like to talk about him anymore [laughs].
Once I got to UF, I realized this made up more of who I was and I realized that what I did was bigger than what I originally thought. In the third year, we grew to six hopscotch tournaments. This year, I'm trying to see what's been making it so successful. We partnered up with the MS Challenge in California and we had an event in Orlando earlier this year. A girl in Miami who's 16 and has MS wants to have an event. So it's been growing.
It's been three years, but it doesn't really feel like that because I didn't really start taking it seriously until about a year ago.
What's the long-term plan or the endgame for you and your charity, other than its continued growth? Is there anything in particular you want to accomplish?
Of course, the goal of any nonprofit is to almost not need to be there anymore. With MS, with me, with how closely I'm affected by it, the idea is to find a cure. Until that happens, the scale of "Hopping 4 A Cure" is at a point where the money that we're raising is a few thousand per tournament. But a few thousand to a big pharmaceutical company may not have as much of an impact versus if we give a scholarship to help with caregiver support. It's going to mean a lot more to an everyday person. Currently, we feel like we can make the biggest impact to the average person with MS.
The rules that we have right now, it's very competitive. We're trying to trim some of the fat off of these games so we can make a true competitive game out of hopscotch, because that would be really funny. There's a college Quidditch league now, so what's the chances of hopscotch in the Olympics?
Was the plan originally to just donate the money to the National MS Society? When did that change to giving the money to individuals and families?
When we stared, the MS Society endorsing us was the biggest thing we could have asked for. Right from the get-go, we thought this was a good thing. If we were just going to do it a few times, [then donating to them] was the idea. For whatever reason, my belief is we were too new, they said no to us for becoming an official event of the MS Society. So once we decided to keep going, we filed for 501(c)3 [status for non-profits]. We're getting college age students and younger. The MS Society usually hits upper-20s and 30s. But we're not against each other. We still work very well hand in hand.
If you were in a room with How I Met Your Mother co-creators Carter Bays and Craig Thomas and/or the cast, what would you say to them?
I think that it's very important for them to realize that they weren't just another sitcom and to know the impact that they've had on myself and others. How I Met Your Mother will end but "Hopping 4 A Cure" will live on and we'll be able to help people with MS because of How I Met Your Mother. If I could talk to anybody who's a part of the team, I would tell them that they weren't just a show. It's actually a thing that something else has come from that TV show.
I don't know if you're familiar with TED Talks, but Drew Dudley talks about a "lollipop moment." A "lollipop moment" is when a random person does something normal, but it radically changes someone else's life. HIMYM had this "lollipop moment" on my friends and me and, as a result, we've been able to raise so many thousands of dollars to help others.
Portions of this interview were edited.