We, Caroline McCarthy and Kallie Schmeisser, are honored to participate as a team 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. We are proud to support my candidate and are 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.

Both of us have close connections to cancer. 

My reason for being part of this initiative was that my grandfather, Richard Peck, passed away in 2001 from multiple myeloma. And many of my relatives have either suffered from or died of different types of cancer. If an organization, such as LLS, had been better known and funded, it would have greatly benefitted my family. Sadly, I never got to meet my grandfather, but I always wonder what he would've been like if I had gotten the chance. This campaign means so much to me because I don't want others to be affected in the same way I was. 

My grandmother, Mary McCarthy, passed from a similar form of myeloma in 2012, when I was seven. I remember the last time I saw her, my siblings and I were all gathered around her bed, and she told us that she loved us. My grandma and my other relatives who have suffered from many different types of cancers are why supporting this cause is so important to me. 

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.