Students of the Year Washington DC
Team James Madison | Team Grampa
James Madison High School's Students of the Year Fundraiser
Warhawks,
Thank you for visiting James Madison High School's Students of the Year fundraising page, welcome!
We encourage you to join us in supporting The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society (LLS) by making a donation to our fundraising campaign. We are so excited to have two teams representing Madison in LLS's Students of the Year campaign. Team Grampa is led by sisters Ella Stratman (a junior) and Emery Stratman (a sophomore). Sophomores Caroline Clinton and Susan Pirnat are also both members of Team Grampa. Team Warhawks for Clean Blood is led by co-candidates Ainona Black-Planas and Matthew Wilken who are both Madison seniors. Our teams are joining forces to fundraise through the Madison community and your donation will help us reach our goal combined goal of $85,000.
Ella and Emery Stratman are participating in Students of the Year in memory of their grandfather, Grampa Jack, who sadly passed away from lymphoma in 2009. It was extremely hard to lose Grampa Jack, but he was only able to live as long as he did thanks to the LLS funded cancer therapies that targeted cancer cells. Through our fundraising efforts we hope to help blood cancer patients like Grampa Jack live life to its fullest.
Ainona has decided to participate in honor of her mom, who battled with breast and stomach cancer for 8 years until she ultimately passed away in April 2020. Although LLS is an organization mainly fighting against blood cancers, research and treatment development for any type of cancer will help advancements in any and all cancers. Indirectly, LLS’ work helped Ainona’s mom live for as long as she could before she physically couldn’t anymore. The amount of pain her mom and the whole family endured was tragic, but that’s what motivated Ainona to fight for other families who need the financial and medical support. As a close friend of Ainona's, Matthew was motivated to start making a change in the community and in the world, so as few people as possible would have to go through what he saw Ainona's family and other friends go through.
We've all watched a loved one battle cancer, and we know how hard it can be on the patient and their family. Please support us so that no one will have to fight that battle again. 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. Our 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.
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. 40% of all cancer therapies approved by the FDA over the past 20 years started as blood cancer therapies, so in supporting LLS you are supporting all cancer patients. That is why at LLS we say that beating cancer is in our blood.
Please visit our 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. All donations are tax-deductible.
On behalf of cancer patients and their families everywhere, we sincerely thank you for your support, Warhawks!
For more information about LLS, please visit lls.org