Dear esteemed family and friends,

My name is Mina Lili Kassim, and this year I am partaking in the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society's (LLS) 2020 Students of the Year (SOY) campaign. This campaign is a seven-week initiative in which select high school students from around the country are nominated to compete in a fundraising event, centered on finding a cure for leukemia, lymphoma, Hodgkin's disease, and myeloma, and on improving the quality of life of patients and their families. With a number of my close friends and family battling cancer, I am grateful to be given the opportunity to raise funds in recognition of those who are battling or are in remission from blood cancer. 

Because of campaigns like Students of the Year, LLS has seen tremendous success in discovering new and more effective treatments for blood cancer patients, creating a new exciting initiative focusing on treatments for pediatric patients. Notably,

• LLS has funded 45 of the 51 FDA approved treatments for blood cancer patients since 2017
• Since 2000, more than 40% of the new cancer therapies approved by the FDA started as blood cancer research
• In 2019, LLS established The LLS Children's Initiative, a comprehensive $50 MILLION multi-year endeavor, to help children with cancer through every facet of LLS's mission:
  • More than doubling our investment in pediatric cancer research grants
  • Expanding education and support service for children and their families
  • Advocating for and driving policies to accelerate the development of new treatments and break down barriers to care
  • Launching LLS PedAL (Pediatric Acute Leukemia), a groundbreaking global precision medicine clinical trial in acute pediatric leukemia

Many LLS supported therapies are now also used to treat patients with rare forms of stomach and skin cancers and are even being tested in clinical trials for patients with a range of cancers, including lung, brain, breast, pancreatic, and prostate cancers. LLS's continued advancements over the years are responsible for the blood cancer survival rate doubling and tripling; in some cases, the survival rate has even quadrupled.

My personal goal is to raise 6,000 dollars by the end of the initiative. My fundraising team is called Knock Out Blood Cancer and is lead by two of my friends Ellie Huppe and Haley Smith. As a team, our mission is not only to raise money– one of our primary goals is to bring attention to and better the cancer epidemic

Each dollar donated serves as a vote, and the team that raises the most money at the end of the seven weeks is named Students of the Year.

Please join me in supporting LLS and my campaign. Thanks to your support, my efforts will help promote the therapies and treatments that help save lives today. All donations are much appreciated and are tax-deductible. With your donation, you do not only support LLS research but patient services, advocacy, public and professional education, and community services as well. Together WE CAN FIND A CURE!

Please pass along the link to family, friends, neighbors, colleagues, etc. who might donate! On behalf of blood cancer patients everywhere, I thank you for your support!

For more information about LLS, please visit www.lls.org.