I am very honored and excited to let you know that I have been nominated as a candidate for The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society’s 2020 Students of the Year!

Students of the Year is an annual philanthropic leadership development program where high school leaders sign up as candidates and lead teams to raise money and awareness for LLS. We have from January 18 to March 8 to raise as much as we can. The candidate to raise the most money wins the title Oregon and SW Washington’s Student of the Year.

All of the money we raise goes to LLS’s mission to cure leukemia, lymphoma, Hodgkin’s disease, and Myeloma, and improve the quality of life of patients and their families.

From a young age, I have always been driven to help people however and whenever I can. Helping cancer patients is close to my heart. Losing closest relatives to cancer on my mom’s side of the family has had a huge impact. After my grandpa, grandma, and aunt passed away from it, I decided I want to drive efforts to raise funds for a cure, so other families would be spared the heavy loss my family had to suffer.

LLS is the largest funder of cutting-edge research to advance cures. It has invested nearly $1.3 billion in research worldwide. 40% of all cancer treatments approved since 2000 originated as blood cancer treatments. Better yet, LLS has funded nearly 1 in 4 of all cancer treatments. That’s why I was thrilled to be nominated, because I know all of the money I raise is going to an organization that gets results for cancer patients and their families.

About every 9 minutes, someone in the US dies from blood cancer.

That’s more than 6 people every hour or 160 people each day. We have seven weeks to help those people. This honor is especially close to my heart as it combines two of my passions. I want to drive efforts to raise funds to find a cure. My other passion – golf – is another drive I want to use to help this initiative. Please don’t wait to start helping; your time is now! Please support me and my team “Drive2Cure” in curing blood cancer one step at a time! Any amount counts and will help more than you know. 

With heartfelt gratitude,
Franca Polla