Hi everyone!

            I’m very excited to be a part of the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society as a candidate for the Student of the Year Campaign.  I am lucky to be running alongside many great students across the Central Valley this year. 

In the year 2008, my Yia-Yia began to experience health problems with various symptoms including shortness of breath. Her doctors recommended her to a cardiologist who noticed a buildup of fluid near her heart. Long story short, my grandmother was diagnosed with Non-Hodgkins Lymphoma. At the time, I was only six and didn’t understand what was going on. Looking back at it, I realized how it affected my family and herself.

However, with the great help and care of local doctors she is fully recovered 11 years later. While this type of cancer has the possibility of returning at some point, the research put on through the Leukemia Lymphoma Society can make future treatments go even easier for patients. 

This year, I plan on contributing to the amazing work done by LLS and to take on the battle against cancer through my campaign. Nearly everyone knows someone taking on the fight against cancer, but cancer research is beginning to win the battle.  Thanks to LLS, we are able to help people all over, including local kids such as our honored heroes, Emmy Gutierrez who is an Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia (ALL) survivor and Nicolas Hambalek who survived Hodgkin’s Lymphoma. With your help, we can find a cure and celebrate more cancer survivors.

I would greatly appreciate your donation to my campaign to support the Leukemia Lymphoma Society. Supporting my efforts is simple: you can donate directly through my website, soyemily.org or send checks payable to the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society (LLS) to 1611 West Pinedale Avenue, Fresno, CA, 93711! Be sure to note my name, Emily Perez, in the memo portion of the check. Thank you for your support!

Let’s take on this battle together. 

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.