A pandemic didn't stop 10 candidate teams from raising a whole lot of money in the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society's Students of the Year campaign. This group of high school students from the OC and IE competed for 7 weeks to raise as much money as possible for blood cancer research, with the final weeks under a stay-at-home order! Because of the pandemic, their Grand Finale, originally set for March 29th, had to be pushed back and held virtually. Finale time finally came last night where the group found out that they had collectively raised $452,609.02 for the cause!!
On a personal note, my daughter Juleen (you know her as Juju) a Junior at Martin Luther King High School in Riverside was one of the candidates. I could not be more proud of this young lady. She lead her own team (Mission CANcer-vive) to raise a goal crushing $64,490.66 in honor of patients everywhere and the new children's initiative the LLS is funding. If I may boast a little more about my baby, she also won the "Mission Integration" award and will be given the honor to name a research grant for raising over $50k. Talk about exciting!!!
Juleen and I have been asked to lead next year's SOY campaign and we gladly accepted the roles and a mother-daughter team. I'm ecstatic to work on this with my girl in her last year of high school. (I'm not crying, you're crying!!)
If you or anyone you know would like to learn more about how to get involved with the Students of the Year campaign for 2021, please message me! We are officially in the nominating process now.
Here was my little note on Instagram last night and Juleen's words to her team after the Zoom finale was over.