Our team had the best time at the LLS Kick-Off Event last night! We can't wait to get this show on the road and make a difference :)

My name is Lauren Jones and I am a Junior at the Academy of the Holy Names who has been nominated as a candidate for The Leukemia and Lymphoma Society’s (LLS) Student of the Year campaign. For seven weeks, starting January 17th, 2019, my partner Katelyn Chau and I, alongside students from across the country, will be raising awareness of the research, programs, and advocacy being conducted through LLS, in addition to the funds to support their mission to cure blood cancers. Our goal is to raise $50,000 which would link our names to an LLS research portfolio for the lifesaving research to come!

For my entire life I have always wanted to be a Pediatric Oncologist. That was my goal. Now my goal is to work myself out of a job. In teaming up with LLS I am taking that step towards making my dream come true. I know the pain that cancer causes, I see the ghosts in my moms eyes almost everyday as she cherishes the moments her own mother would have loved. My grandmother, Judith Kenyon, died a month before my mom found out she was pregnant with me. Her death followed only three months from her diagnosis leaving my mother no time to process, no time to grieve, only time to stop taking care of one person and begin devoting herself to another, me. It is a superstition that your birthmarks are determinant of the death of your prior body. I have a birthmark on the back of my neck in the same exact spot my grandmother's glioblastoma multiforme was located and so does my brother. With every part of my heart I believe a part of her soul in embedded in mine. I believe I was put on this earth to avenge her pain and distill that grief for others. In turn, I believe my purpose is to find a cure and now I need your help.

The Leukemia and Lymphoma Society’s work is changing the lives of 1.2 million Americans living with a blood cancer. In fact, the treatments that LLS is funding benefit all cancer patients due to the fact that more than 40% of the new cancer treatment drugs approved by the FDA since 2005 started as blood cancer drugs but are now being applied in other forms of cancer. Your donation, big or small, is so powerful because, as of today, the final amount of money needed to end cancer is unknown which signifying the fact that any dollar from any person can finish the fight. 

 If you like to learn more about how you could help please contact me at (813)-992-2021 or laurenjudithjones@outlook.com and for more information about LLS, please visit www.lls.org.