Hello all! I just wanted to thank everyone who supported me along the 7-week fundraising campaign! I am honored to be the inaugural Fort Worth Student of the Year! We are still accepting donations until June! My team is just under hitting our goal to get a research grant in our team's name! This is exciting for me, because I will get to choose which segment of cancer research LLS will award the grant. Please spread the word! Thank you again for all your support.

Thank you again to everyone who has helped me on this journey! I wouldn't be here without any of you! Just a reminder online donations end this THURSDAY February 27! Spread the word because we win when cancer loses!

This Cause Is (Fort) Worth It!

Thank you to everyone who has donated to my campaign! We are in the final week and can still do so much good! All donations go towards helping cancer patients and their families! Please share my link with people you know that could support this amazing cause as well!

I was recently selected by my high school principal and teachers to be a candidate for Students of the Year. I am honored to have been the only sophomore from my high school to be nominated for this campaign. This organization raises funds for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society (LLS) through their Students of the Year Campaign. It is a seven-week campaign that runs from January 12 – February 28 in which nominated high school students participate in a fundraising competition that benefits the life-saving mission of LLS: to cure Leukemia, Lymphoma, Hodgkin's Disease and Myeloma. 

This year I have decided to put together a team to fundraise for this cause. Through this campaign, I will have the opportunity to develop project management and fundraising skills. Alongside the campaign, I am very interested in the medical field, that does not involve me actually seeing those that are injured. In life, I would love to help people who need it, but more on the research side. This campaign encompasses all that I am looking for in a potential career within a medical-engineering field.

Most importantly, I have decided to be a part of this campaign to benefit those that have been affected by cancer, as it has touched so many lives. I have seen how cancer can affect not only the patient, but all those around them when my grandfather passed away 4 years ago. I know my family, like so many have walked through similar heartaches as a result of cancer. Because blood is the easiest substance for one to test when it comes to research, by donating to my campaign and LLS, you are also benefiting the research to improve other types of cancer.

I have set a goal for this campaign, and I will need your help to reach it. It saddens me to say that 40% of pediatric cancers are blood cancers. Every three minutes, someone is diagnosed with blood cancer. Every nine minutes, someone dies from one. It is frightening that more than 1.3 million people are living with or are in remission from Leukemia, Lymphoma, and Myeloma, but with your contribution we are changing those statistics. 

Unfortunately, each of our lives has been touched in some way by cancer. LLS is a wonderful organization that is doing its part to help those people who make up the statistics. Their tireless work on behalf of patients is truly inspiring. As the world’s largest health organization dedicated to funding blood cancer research, they have invested more than $1 billion in research aimed at helping all blood cancer patients live longer, healthier lives. LLS research grants have funded many of today's most promising advances, including targeted therapies and immunotherapies, some of which are now helping patients with other types of cancers and serious diseases. Funding this type of research really works! Survival rates for many types of blood cancers have doubled, tripled and in some cases have even quadrupled since 1960.

I ask that you please consider making a donation to support LLS and its great work before the February 28^thdeadline.

Or you can simply mail in your tax-deductible donation and make the check out to “The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society” and write my team name, This Cause Is Fort Worth It!, or my name “Martha Johnston” in the memo section.

You can also help raise funds by inviting others to join us in donating. Event sponsorship and other in-kind opportunities are available too. Please feel free to reach out to me if you think you can help in one of these ways.

Your gift will make a difference. The only way we are going to find a cure is through research, and every dollar you contribute will be a step toward this goal. Please consider donating to my campaign to benefit those who are affected. Just remember that “This Cause Is (Fort) Worth It!”

Thank you very much for your support.

All my best, 

Martha Johnston

Martha Johnston 

I am honored to participate as a team member 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. I am proud to support my candidate and am 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.

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.