Hi! My name is Mahi Siddiqui, I am currently an 11th grader at Hoover High School and I am participating in the Students of the Year campaign with my friend Shaams Nur. I currently take AP Chemistry and Precalculus but next year I plan on doing AP Biology and more health-related classes to follow my life goal to become a doctor. In my free time, you will catch me running and listening to music from soundtracks in movies (Music from Interstellar and Pirates of the Caribbean are a personal favorite). 
 

The photo above is with me (on the left) and Shaams (on the right) with a known Bollywood actor Omi Vaidya (in the middle).
 

I am honored to participate as a team member for the 2021 Students of the Year program, a seven-week initiative in which select high school students from around the country participate in a fundraising competition to benefit The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society. I am proud to support my candidate and am raising critical dollars in honor of a young patient hero who is currently battling or is in remission from a blood cancer. Each dollar is a vote. The candidate team that raises the most money at the end of the seven weeks is named Student of the Year. Our mission is to not only raise the most money but also to bring attention to blood cancers like leukemia, which is the most common form of cancer in children and teens. 

The reason why I wanted to continue participating in the Students of the Year campaign is that I wanted to make a change in medicine and cancer as a high school student and not a doctor or researcher. After going through this program, I want to have the ability to know that the money I raised allowed someone to feel more comfortable and happy for at least one more day. Furthermore, in this program, I will also have the ability to know that I made a huge contribution when cancer is eventually cured. Going through this program will be a memory of mine that I will never forget especially when I become a doctor.

Since the early 1960s, five-year survival rates for many blood cancer patients have doubled, tripled or even quadrupled. And many LLS supported therapies not only help blood cancer patients but are helping patients with other cancers and serious diseases. In fact, drugs first approved for blood cancers are now approved to treat patients with stomach cancers, skin cancers, and autoimmune diseases like rheumatoid arthritis.

Join me to change the face of blood cancer!

All donations are greatly appreciated and are tax deductible. They'll not only support LLS-funded research but will help provide critical information and support for patients, and support advocacy for laws to ensure patients can access the care and treatments they need.

Please visit our website often and bring friends who would also like to donate!

On behalf of blood cancer patients everywhere, thank you for your support!

For more information about LLS, please visit www.lls.org.