This is a link to my campaign video! 

https://youtu.be/3YBscjT2QTU

Thank you so much Jack Hughes for creating this video & helping me raise awareness about my campaign and the fight against blood cancer!

My name is Taylor Stearns, I am a junior at Radnor High School and last year, my two friends Abby Cooper and Abby Idicula were the candidates for Radnor, and it was amazing to see such a strong fundraising effort. Then, they nominated me! I am incredibly honored to represent Radnor for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society’s annual Student of the Year campaign!

Almost everyone knows someone who was impacted by cancer which is the second leading cause of deaths globally. Blood cancer, specifically, Leukemia, lymphoma and myeloma were estimated to kill 58,100 people in 2018. Approximately every 3 minutes one person in the United States is diagnosed with a blood cancer. There needs to be a change in today's research to lower 3 minutes to 0. The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society has been the pioneer behind the fight to find a cure for blood cancer. With over 1 billion dollars invested in research, there has been amazing breakthroughs. Funds have been collected for research in many ways and the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society offers a campaign for students in high school to make a difference.

Student of the Year campaign is a seven week competition to raise a minimum of $10,000 to support the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society. Radnor competes against other schools in the Greater Philadelphia region to raise the most amount of money possible. At the end of the seven weeks, there is a banquet that reveals how much each candidate has raised.

My mother’s Aunt passed away from Non-Hodgkin's Lymphoma when there were limited treatments available, so the main reason I decided to join this campaign was so that no one would be in the position of not having options for treatment. In the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society's 70 year history, there has been major advances in treatments, leading to significant increases in survival rates. Since the 1960s, survival rates for many blood cancer patients have doubled, tripled or even quadrupled, but more research is needed. Over 1 in 3 blood cancer patients do not survive five years after their diagnosis, so more funding is needed to advance research and ensure access to treatments to help save more lives.