Hey! My name is Claire Kane. I am a junior at The Connelly School of the Holy Child. This year, I am honored to announce that I am a Co-Leader for my team, Team Two Coasts for a Cure in the LLS 2021 Student of the Year Campaign! The Student of the Year campaign is an innitative organized by the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society (LLS), which allows high schools students from the United States to participate in a campaign through raising money and awareness for these blood cancers with in a seven week time frame. Leading an LLS team has been a dream of mine since recognizing the impact these students have made and watching my cousin, Julia Strittmatter, lead a team as well. I am very excited and enthusiastic to be leading my very own team and being able to make an impact in fighting these blood cancers. 

This year, I have decided to honor my fundraiser to my grandparents, E.I. Kane and Jane Thebo Kane, who unfortunally died of Lung Cancer in 1986 (Jane) and 2004 (E.I.). Although my grandparents did not suffer from any form of blood cancer, 40% of all cancer treatments created since 2000 have began bring used first as a blood cancer treatment. This means that not only will you be helping improve the lives and treatments of people suffering blood cancer, but your donation can possibly make a major impact on someone else suffering from a different form of cancer in their body.

After seeing the way my grandparent's death affects my entire family, I would never want another family to loose a loved one to any form of cancer. By leading an LLS team, I am able raise money to ensure that in the furture no family will have to suffer from the loss of a loved one. 

I encourage you to join me in supporting The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society (LLS) by making a donation to my fundraising campaign. By donating to LLS, you support the many facets of LLS’s mission work from investing in groundbreaking research, providing education and support to patients, and advocating at the state and federal level for legislation to help those living with cancer. My appreciation for your support cannot be overstated — each and every dollar donated to LLS brings us closer to our goal to end blood cancer and makes an impact for cancer patients and their families.

As a global leader in the fight to end cancer, LLS is committed to doing more for blood cancer patients and families than any organization in the world. LLS’s signature fundraising campaigns drive critical support for its mission, including a nearly $1.3 billion investment in cutting edge cancer research worldwide since it was founded in 1949. Since the 1960s, survival rates for many blood cancer patients have doubled, tripled, or even quadrupled.

Every facet of LLS’s mission – research, education and support, and policy and advocacy – work in harmony to put blood cancer patients and their families first. LLS has helped millions impacted by cancer throughout its more than 70-year history, even funding breakthrough blood cancer research to advance lifesaving treatments and cures that is now helping patients with other cancers and diseases. That is why at LLS we say that beating cancer is in our blood.

Please visit my website as often as you can and share it with everyone you know who would also like to join us in the fight against cancer. Together, we have the power, the passion and the resolve to achieve a world without blood cancer. All donations are tax-deductible.

On behalf of cancer patients and their families everywhere, I sincerely thank you for your support!

For more information about LLS, please visit lls.org