The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society is starting it’s campaign season to raise money to help fight blood cancer. Among Oak Park High School students, there are multiple campaigns going around working to raise money to help fight this disease.

Junior Nikita Manyak and senior Lauren Nicholson are some of the students that have been nominated as “Students of the Year Gold Coast” by LSS and are in charge of groups of their own called Team Total Knockout Cancer and Caring for a Cure, respectively. 

“My mom was diagnosed with end stage Hodgkin’s lymphoma sixteen years ago. After a long battle with cancer, hospitalizations and the endless chemotherapy, my mom was given the gift of life and is able to be an integral part of my life today,” Manyak said. 

When Nicholson was nominated, she decided to dedicate her campaign to her cousin Riley, “a cancer survivor at only age [eight],” in support of other children diagnosed with cancer.

“Riley was diagnosed with Wilms’ Tumor at only four years old,” Nicholson said. “After having her kidney removed, she went through chemotherapy, though six months later, a spot on her lung was found. This also had to be surgically removed, requiring her to go through radiation treatment and chemotherapy yet again. Luckily, these numerous treatments helped her overcome cancer, and she’s been in remission for almost 4.5 years now.”

The process of campaigning is seven weeks long from April 5 to May 22, and both Manyak and Nicholson are reaching out to influential business leaders in hopes that they can become a sponsor of LLS. In these seven weeks, they are given different challenges and compete with other teams in the Greater Los Angeles area to get the Students of the Year award at the end of the campaign.

“The goals of the Student of the Year Campaign is to raise money and awareness for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society to better educate and support our community about these life-threatening diseases,” Nicholson said.