Dear Friends and Family,

I have been given the opportunity of a lifetime to help raise money for a great cause, The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society (LLS) with my teammates from Morro Bay High School.

Each year, The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society (LLS) launches its Student of the Year fundraising campaign, we were honored to join this year’s efforts as a candidate for our team, Stronger Together. We are writing today to ask for your support of LLS’s mission in its efforts to find cures for blood cancers and to improve the lives of patients and their families. 

We’ve both had many close relatives and friends battling cancer, one of which was our neighbor, Riley, who fought a long battle with leukemia, which he unfortunately lost at the end. This has inspired us to take up this cause to help other families not have to deal with this loss. 

There are many reasons to be proud to support LLS’s efforts. For instance, approximately 40% of new cancer therapies approved by the FDA between 2000 and 2018 were first approved for blood cancer patients. And many of these LLS- supported therapies not only help blood cancer patients but are now approved to treat patients with rare forms of stomach and skin cancers, and noncancerous diseases such as rheumatoid arthritis and other autoimmune diseases. They’re even being tested in clinical trials for patients with a range of cancers including lung, bran, breast, pancreatic and prostate cancers, and noncancerous diseases such as diabetes and lupus.

This is where you come in and help cure these diseases.

Please use the link https://events.lls.org/cca/slosoy20/stogether, or the enclosed response form, to make a tax deductible contribution to LLS. You can mail checks to 381 Mitchell Drive, Los Osos, CA, 93402. Please put Stronger Together in the memo section.Please share this with anyone you know as well, anything helps. If you own a business or have connections to someone that does and are willing to donate there are many great opportunities for you.

We thank you in advance for supporting this incredible cause. I will keep you posted on the campaign status. For now, I am so grateful for your support!

Sincerely,

Shay Nelson and Sydney Beckett

And our team-- Jessica Sloan, Reese Tartaglia, Abby Hall, Sophie Graves and Hana Yoneyama, Leah St Arnaud 

I am honored to participate as a team member for the 2020 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.

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.

We really are changing 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.