I have some very exciting news to share!!

After I sent out the celebratory email last Saturday sharing my team won the Students of the Year fundraising competition(!!!) and raised $87K, two incredibly generous friends reached out to me and shared they were so impressed by the effort and time put into my campaign that they'd give us a little push and donated the rest to get us to our fundraising goal of $100,000!! 

Currently, my team is at $100,528.88! I've been asked by a few if it's still possible to donate, and the answer is yes! You can donate here until June 30, and all funds go to my team's total and the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society, but they won't count toward the competition which we've already won :).

I'm so grateful for all the love and kind words! We did it!!

With a cure in mind,

Tea Kalpakoff

I wouldn’t have been able to fundraise a single dollar if you hadn’t said yes after receiving a letter from the kid of your high school friend, an email from your young neighbor whom you haven’t talked to in months, or a phone call from your work friend’s daughter. It’s because you decided to join me in the fight against blood cancers that I was able to fundraise far beyond what I ever hoped and WIN!

Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!!! I’ve been saying those words an awful lot over these past weeks, but I still haven’t been able to express the extent of my gratitude toward my community. Your support has blown my mind. Last night was the Grand Finale for my Students of the Year campaign for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society. Let’s just say there were many joyful tears and spontaneous giggles.

• My team raised $87k+ !!!

• We were the Students of the Year TEAM CHAMPIONS!!

• Altogether, the Central California Region teams raised $323k!!!!

We celebrated together with Lindsey Noland and her daughter Claire, our local hero. Once we saw that we won, they rushed out with balloons, confetti, and gift bags. Inside, there was a colorful paper with blue glitter, a handwritten note from adorable Claire. She said when she was diagnosed, she was scared. But when she learned about LLS and that I was helping, she wasn’t scared anymore. That is why I did this, for amazing Claire and children like her who deserve to live spontaneously and free from any lifechanging disease.

After 9 months of working on this campaign, the greatest lesson I’ve learned is the incredible impact a community can have when they decide to come together. I’m a freshman in high school, I’m just a kid, yet with your help, we made an impact in the lives of so many incredible people. I am overjoyed and so so grateful to all of you. Thank you for helping me make a difference.

With a cure in mind,

Tea Kalpakoff

My fundraising campaign for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society is on its last stretch. After May 14, my team can no longer receive donations. You have just 5 days left to help me make a difference in the lives of so many wonderful patients, families, and children!!!

You can donate at this site. It’s best to not send checks anymore as they might arrive too late!

The campaign ends with a Grande Finale zoom this Friday from 6-7 pm PST with the pre-show starting at 5:40 pm. We will find out which team fundraised the most, how much we raised together, along with opportunities for final donations or bids on auction items! Anyone is welcome to come, and I would absolutely love it if YOU would support me and my team by bidding on auction items and supporting my team!

To join the zoom and to bid on auction items, visit https://OTYCentralCA21.givesmart.com or text OTYCentralCA21 to 76278.

SAVE THE DATE: Virtual Silent Auction this Tuesday, May 10 - Friday, May 14. Look for an email coming your way tomorrow! :) 

This week I met with Sacha Carlson, actor in Netflix’s hit show Julie and the Phantoms, who has been supporting my team, Coastal Cancel Cancer Crew. He’s a high schooler who lives right here in San Luis Obispo County and actually went to the same elementary school as Claire Noland!

Sacha said, “When I met Claire, I was instantly blown away by the amount of courage and strength it takes to be in her situation. I don't know how she does it.” “I was really moved by [her story], and when I heard she was a fan of the show, I was like, this is a perfect opportunity for me to give back and help out.” 

In our interview, Sacha shared his own personal experience with cancer. He lost a vocal coach when he was 13, and Sacha said he’s “still so inspired by his energy today,” and he lost his beloved grandmother this January. “I don't know if I’m in denial or if I’ve accepted my grandma's passing.” “She was such a great grandma, and I’m so lucky to have her in my life.” “It's just crazy how [cancer] works and how quickly things can be taken away from you.”

For Sacha, the most surprising part of the journey is that he is now in the position to leverage his notoriety for an important cause. He said, “this is my first opportunity I’ve had since the show came out to reach out and help in some way. [This] has been really inspiring just because of you guys [who are] such great people and such hard-working people."

In talking to Sacha, it was very clear this cause has personal meaning for him, and he hopes to be able to continue to use his social platform to help others. As he said, “there's a lot of crazy stuff going on in the world,” but for him, “it's been such a positive experience. One word to describe this experience is inspired, and [I’m] excited to hopefully be able to do this again.”

To watch a short clip of Sacha talking about how this experience has taught him the strength of the community, click here to link to my Instagram post.

If you’d like to follow Sacha’s journey, follow @sacha_carlson on Instagram.

This week, I spoke with Lindsey Noland, a mother of three wonderful kids, and her youngest is Claire who is nine years old and currently battling lymphoma for the second time after being cancer-free for 2 years. 

For Claire, 2021 looks like chemotherapy every three weeks on Thursdays at Stanford Hospital. A typical chemo day involves six hours of prep at the hospital for a 30-minute infusion and then a couple of hours of observation. Additionally, it takes the family over three hours to drive to Stanford Hospital each way, and “the drive home takes a long time because [Claire] doesn't feel great, and so it makes for a very long day.” Four times a year, Claire is sedated and has chemotherapy injected into her spine. When she was diagnosed in 2018, “the cancer had completely consumed her midbrain”, so this quarterly spinal injection is a proactive measure as, during this relapse, she thankfully has no known cancer in her brain. This treatment is done before the standard chemotherapy and prep, so it “adds on a lot to [their] regular regimen.” 

When asked why her family decided to make Claire’s journey public, Lindsey shared she and her husband were driving home from Stanford right after Claire’s diagnosis, and “it was all so chaotic. The time of diagnosis is really a busy busy time, and we felt so overwhelmed by all the love and support from everyone, [. . .] and I just didn't have the bandwidth to respond to everybody in a way that I wanted to and update them in the way that I felt like they probably deserved to be updated.” Another factor that led to sharing Claire’s story was a series of autobiographies that Lindsey read when Claire was a baby about the author’s experience with Stage 4 breast cancer and her journey from life to death as she was put on hospice and posted daily. Lindsey shared she felt, “honored that I could hear these intimate parts of her journey, [. . .] and that influenced me because I thought there might be an opportunity here to open the doors of what pediatric cancer looks like.”

The greatest lesson Lindsey has learned from Claire’s journey with cancer is “that there really is beauty in suffering, [. . .] and there's hope in it also. When you take away all the extras in life, and you're faced with life and death, it puts a lot of things into perspective, and we feel very fortunate that we have that perspective because it makes decisions easy, it makes our perspective easy, and our response to things easier. We're still human, [. . .] but in the grand scheme of things, I am so fortunate that I’m here every day, able to be these kiddos mama and walk them to school, be close to my husband, and be able to [hosts events like the Run for a Cure]. That wasn't an option back in 2018. I was fully immersed in caring for her in and out of the hospital, and so I don't take anything for granted because of that, because I know any moment we would have to go. [. . .] We always have our go-bags ready to go.” 

I’ve shared this family holds a large place in my heart, and this interview perfectly explains why. Lindsey is a beautiful person inside and out, and the whole Noland family is genuinely kind and has unmatched gratitude for every beauty life presents. 

Please help me help families like the wonderful Nolands by donating to this page, or if you have already, sharing this link to 3 people in your network who you think will donate or share through social media

To learn more about Claire's journey check out:

Lindseynoland.com  
lindsey.noland on Instagram

This is Tea Kalpakoff. I’m seeking to save lives, but I need your help.

It’s not too late to support me in my fundraising efforts for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society and provide hope to extraordinary children. Until May 14th, my team, Team Coastal Cancel Cancer Crew, can receive donations to help us reach our goal of $100,000 which will go directly to LLS in support of its longstanding goal: a world without blood cancers. 

The biggest in-person event for my team’s campaign is the Run for a Cure which we hosted on April 18, and I organized this run. I’ve been planning this run since Thanksgiving Break of 2020, and I’m so relieved and overjoyed to share that it went wonderfully. Each runner ran a total of 5 miles and has committed to fundraising at least $250 toward our campaign. We had 3 teams of around 10 runners each, and each team honored a kid blood cancer warrior: Team Mateo, Team Annie, and Team Claire.

These three 9-year-olds were at the event, and they each said a couple of words at the run such as “Thank you for canceling cancer” and “Thank you for saving lives.” Hearing those little kids speak up truly warmed my heart. Mateo’s mom, Erika, pulled me aside to share how she appreciated my fundraising and more importantly appreciated me allowing her son an opportunity to enjoy time with his friends. She said it’s people like me that give her family hope. 

I would repeat every late night, every phone call, and every overscheduled day five times over if it meant I could give wonderful families like the Cotas a bit of hope. They have inspired me in their strength and ability to smile every single day, so hearing I could give them a reason to smile and even find a little more strength meant more to me than I can say.

You can make an online donation in any amount by donating at this page, or you can mail a check payable to the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society to 255 Baron Cyn Ranch Rd, San Luis Obispo, CA 93401. Please note Tea Kalpakoff in the memo section of the check.

Mateo spent the entirety of the run in his baseball clothes as he had a game after. These kids want to live a normal life with sports, friends, and family, but they also have to fight cancer. LLS allows these kids to have hope and go to their baseball games, so I ask you to please be their hope. Thank you for your generous support.

Photo appearance(from left to right): Annie Blake, Claire Noland, myself, Mateo Cota

Photographer: Nicole Pratt Photography

An amazing aspect of this campaign is getting to work with the phenomenal LLS staff who are incredibly helpful and always have a big smile on their faces. I met with Campaign Development Specialist, Freya Wilkerson, to talk about her journey to her current role and what she’s learned and experienced in her role.

Freya was approached by the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society when they were looking for a San Luis Obispo representative, and she said, “it came at a really interesting time for me personally because my brother had just been diagnosed and was in remission for cancer, not a blood cancer, but a different kind, and I had really been touched by having a family member have cancer. I think, before, I had always just heard the word cancer, and you say ‘Oh my gosh. I'm so sorry. That's terrible.’ But until it affects you personally, until you see your loved one lose their hair and get sick...” She paused to wipe tears from her eyes. “You face potential things that could affect his life and my life as a family member.  You just don't know, and so I felt that it was a sign from a higher power that I needed to make a directional change in my life, and so I did.”

She says, “I believe in this cause because I see it working. I meet with patients that have used our services and benefited from them. I've seen people get better. I've seen improvements in medicine come.”

“In the beginning [of a cancer diagnosis], you just don't understand it, and you don't know where to go. [Patients] can come to us and legitimately ask a question and feel supported. They can ask, ‘Where can I go for this? I'm lost. I’m scared.’ And we can help people.”

“I love this job because I'm doing something that I love and I'm working for an organization that I love, but [more imporantly] I get to meet people, [high schoolers], that legitimately are going to change the world [. . .] I get so moved. Thank you doesn't say enough for me. It just doesn't [. . .] It's just so inspiring because if a high schooler can do this, it just means everything.”

Meeting with Freya further proved to me how extraordinary this campaign is and showed how impactful LLS really is. 

Today, April 18, my team held our fundraising event: the Run for a Cure!!! I’ll share more about it next week, but for now, I will simply say it went far better than I could have imagined, and it was truly amazing to gather so many people my age and younger who have a communal goal of improving the lives of others. So overjoyed and exhausted!

We’re a little over halfway through our campaign which ends May 14, so if you haven’t already, please please support this extraordinary cause by donating at this page and join me in the fight against blood cancers!