Hagerstown youths driven by personal connections to raise funds for blood cancer charity

For several members of North Hagerstown High's Hub Heroes, raising funds for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society is personal.

For Ellie Finn it's a way to celebrate her step-grandfather recently completing his radiation treatment for lymphoma. It also is one of the ways she feels she can support a dance friend, a college freshman, going through her second round of chemotherapy for leukemia.

"It does help me feel like I'm helping in some way — to not only help them, but to help other people who are also struggling" with cancer or have a family member going through it, said Ellie, 17, a senior.

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The Hub Heroes team formed last fall, led by Shradha Bista, Barna Begzad and Lauren Stine as part of the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society's Student Visionaries of the Year fundraiser.

The 13 students organized various ways to bring in money toward their goal of raising $50,000 by this Saturday.

What is Student Visionaries of the Year?

Student Visionaries, formerly known as the Students of the Year campaign, is a philanthropic leadership development program for high school students, according to the nonprofit's website.

Team leaders Shradha, Barna and Lauren decided to devote the money their team raises for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society to patient support, one of the nonprofit's three missions, Barna said. The other missions are research as well as policy and advocacy.

Among the ways the nonprofit provides patient support is through a variety of financial aid programs to help patients with blood cancer, according to the society's website. The group also provides nutrition education and consultations, support groups and caregiver support.

The Student Visionaries program also is a competition with other high-school teams in Maryland. They will find out who raises the most money during a celebration and recognition ceremony Saturday in Baltimore.

The program helps candidates like Barna, a junior, learn and improve professional skills such as networking and project management since they have to create fundraisers, she said.

"I feel I learned a lot on how to develop initiatives like this. Also, I learned a lot about the financial side," said Barna, 16.

Team members solicited corporate sponsors, arranged restaurant fundraisers and organized a Super Bowl squares fundraiser. The latter had participants buy a chance to win money if they correctly guessed the final score.

Currently, the team has an online raffle for a chance to win a movie theater fun pack, a jewelry pack or an abstract painting by North High science teacher Bree Calkins.

People who want to make a donation can do so at the Hub Heroes' team page through the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society, or by making a contribution through one of the team members' pages. The Hub Heroes page can be found at https://bit.ly/42Jd55E.

Ellie said she's learned a lot about fundraising, but also about dedication and how "if you really put your mind to something, you can really achieve a lot."

Daphne Wang, 16, a junior, said she overcame her apprehensiveness about asking people for money, realizing it's OK to seek help for "such an important cause."

"It's good to push past your comfort zone," she said.

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Raising money to help cancer patients is personal for team members

Some of the team members have lost family or friends to cancer.

Barna lost her grandmother within the last few years to colon cancer.

She said her grandmother was living in China and they didn't have a chance to meet in person. But they chatted via video calls a few times during her grandmother's health crisis.

Her death took a "heavy toll" on the family and, similar to teammates with personal connections to cancer, motivated her to work toward Hub Heroes' fundraising goal, Barna said.

Daphne said a family friend who helped her parents get acclimated to the U.S. when they immigrated from China, passed away in 2017 from breast cancer.

"I grew up with her. She babysat me," Daphne said.

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Daphne said she wanted to be involved with Hub Heroes "to help anybody dealing with this kind of devastating disease."

"It's an honorable cause I wanted to be a part of," she said.

This article originally appeared on The Herald-Mail: Hub Heroes raising money to help leukemia and lymphoma patients