Hello everybody,

I do believe a new post has been a long time coming. My sincerest apologies for not posting as regularly as I had promised. I have discovered the reality of life does not slow down for anything, and the SOY campaign is no exception! I guess I should have figured that out by now considering how I always have piles of other tasks that STILL need to be completed by the end of the day.

Continuing on with the update, I want to direct your attention to a video I recently watched called Fire with Fire. The video is about a clinical trial focusing on a new medical treatment invented by Dr. Carl June. To quickly summarize, the new treatment is in the form of a backpack which takes patients' T-cells and infects them with a virus, effectively killing the cancer cells. 

Isn't that incredible!? New medical treatments like these are the kind of projects and solutions LLS funds. YOUR donations to my campaign go directly into the funds that further groundbreaking medical achievments, discoveries, and breakthroughs. Funded cures and treatments that were researched to treat blood cancer can now treat patients with stomach cancers, skin cancers, and autoimmune diseases like rheutamoid arthiritis. 

I encourage you to watch the video yourself to learn more about the projects and solutions LLS funds and has funded. We really are changing the face of blood cancer!

Lauren Ho

Hello all!

Here is the link to my team's fundraising page:

https://events.lls.org/svmb/SVMBSOY2018/tvitae

To read our weekly blog posts, learn about who we are, our "WHY," and what vitae even stands for, make sure to visit our page! Just like my fundraising page, you can:

1) Share our message and fundraising link with your contacts via email or social media (make sure to tag my social media account)

2) Donate a silent auction item that can be used for the Grand Finale Gala auction

3) Help us secure a corporate sponsorship with a company

4) Help us secure a matching gift through your company

Lauren Ho

Co-Campaign Leader of Team Vitae

Hello everybody,

If you're reading this, it means that you've chosen to take a few minutes out of your busy life to check out my fundraising page! I'm really happy that you're interested in learning about the Leukemia & Lymphoma society and what they do.

Here's a quick intro: the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society (LLS) is the world's largest voluntary health agency dedicated to blood cancer. The LLS mission: Cure leukemia, lymphoma, Hodgkin's disease and myeloma, and improve the quality of life of patients and their families. LLS funds lifesaving blood cancer research around the world and provides free information and support services.

The LLS annually holds a program called 'Student of the Year' (SOY), which is a leadership development and philanthropy program for highly motivated high school students. Individual Students and teams that are formed participate in a fundraising competition to benefit LLS. Approximately every 3 minutes, one person in the US is diagnosed with a blood cancer; as a result, 172,910 people are affected by leukemia, lymphoma, and myeloma. All the funds from SOY and my campaign will go directly towards LLS and tthe work that they do. I'm incredibly fortunate be apart of the SOY program this year and the amazing cause.

You may be wondering why I chose to participate in SOY. There is no one reason to why I chose to participate in SOY, as the reason is multi-faceted. One of the first reasons would include the ongoing mission by LLS to cure blood cancers. The SOY program, in total with LLS, has raised over $1 billion in funds. These funds are used to continue medical research for blood cancers, increase education, support patients, and to drive policies that increase development for new treatments. The impact is evident, and being a SOY candidate... it just feels really great to know that I'm apart of such an amazing program.

From the SOY program, I have also gained (and am still gaining!) many skills that I wouldn't have learned otherwise. These skills range from:

• Entrepreneurship (coming up with and running fundraising events)
• Financial planning and goal setting
• Networking (outreach, sponsorship requests)

These skills not only prepare me for the SOY campaign, but for the future, and life itself.

As you've read all my reasons above regarding why I joined SOY, you may have asked yourself, "Wow! These sound like great goals, but doesn't everyone within the SOY program have these goals? Why do the reasons Lauren has listed make her anymore special?" This is moment where my "WHY" plays a significant role about my participation in SOY. A "WHY" is the candidates personal intention(s) for participating in the SOY program. Besides from the reasons listed above, I chose to participate in SOY because of the experience it would provide me with. As a teenager belonging to the Generation Z, my dad often likes to tell me that I'm a member of the "entitled" generation. While I'm not at liberty to claim whether or not this is true, however, I must admit that to some extent, I have never been told "no" before. Being apart of LLS, I have encountered several of the following phrases: "no", "sorry, that's a no", and "Lauren, that's unrealistic." These phrases have taught me how to plan, prepapre, and propose realistically; true insight that any teen, or successful entrepreneur requires. In the very beginning of creating my SOY team, I imagined LLS to be a breeze, sailing our team's campaign to succes without a hitch. As it turns out, the SOY experience has proved to be quite the opposite, and I don't say that with any dismay. The lessons I've gained from mentors, teammates, and scary CEOs have shown me so much already, and so far, this experience has turned me into a much more confident, educated, and mature individual. LLS & the SOY program has shown me the amount of effort, time, and passion it takes to create an impact; by donating to my team's fundraising page (TEAM VITAE) and my own, you're creating an impact just as powerful as those apart of the SOY program. It's an exhilarating feeling having people open to accompanying me though this experience as well. 

Lauren Ho

Co-Campaign Leader of Team Vitae

Thank you for visiting my LLS fundraising page!

I am honored to be supporting The Leukemia and Lymphoma Society's Student of the Year program which is 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 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 who raises the most money at the end of the seven weeks is named Student of the Year and I'm proud to be supporting my team. My 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 I thank you for your support!

For more information about LLS, please visit www.lls.org