SHS students got together with American Cancer Youth Society Advisor Melissa Creamer in order to join The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society’s Student Visionaries of the Year campaign. This was a philanthropic 7-week competition among high school students searching to make an impact in the fight against cancer. Below is an interview with Creamer’s insight on the project.

Q: What inspired you to get involved with the Student Visionaries of the Year campaign?

A: For me, I just feel very passionate about organizations that raise money to not only raise awareness for cancer and types of cancer, but also for treatment, and I support what the leukemia and lymphoma society does. I think they are really a good organization in the sense that the money you raised is going towards research and is also going towards awareness. And I thought it was a really good opportunity to get our students involved in the process of organizing and participating in a big event, and I just thought it was also an opportunity for teamwork to give the students a chance to work together on a common goal, but also a goal that’s very beneficial for a lot of people because as we know cancer and even more specifically forms of leukemia have touched a lot of peoples lives in our area and in Solon, and I felt that it was something we could do to help others.

Q: Has SHS participated in this campaign before?

A: It was our first year, so we jumped in, we got a recommendation to look into the program, and I went back to the officers and said,“I don’t know much about this, but are you interested in learning more?” and all of them said yes. Then it was late summer when we jumped on a Zoom call with Tiffany Ziegler– she’s the person that we work with in Northeast Ohio for this campaign, and she gave us more details about it, and I think it took less than five minutes for the group to decide that it was something that they wanted to do.

Q: How do you think the campaign impacts students personally?

A: I know that a lot of the students who got involved in this project had a personal connection. It was either a friend or a relative who has been diagnosed with cancer, who is currently going through cancer treatment, someone who has gone through cancer treatment and they have seen and been impacted on it because they know how it affects people. A lot of them felt personally affected by it because they wanted to do something. A lot of times when you’re in a situation where someone has a diagnosis and they’re going through treatment, you don’t know what you can do. And you’re looking for something you can do, and so being apart of this campaign and raising money and raising awareness gives people an opportunity to feel like there is something that they can do, and you’re working for a great cause–not only is it going to help the people you know, but it’s going to help a great number of people around the world.

Q: What challenges have you and the team faced throughout the process?

A: One of the biggest challenges we had [was] not having prior experience. We really didn’t know when we should have started going for corporate donations, so we really were behind in getting the donations because a lot of the businesses that we went to to ask if they wanted to be a sponsor or make a donation. They have a process you have to go through and then once you submit your request, you have to wait 6-8 weeks to process it, and we really didn’t have that time. We also just didn’t know how to promote ourselves and make people aware of what we were doing, but now we know we need to start sooner next year.

Q: What role has the community engagement played in the campaign?

A: We did a couple of dine to donates, so we had our flyers around the school and were also able to share our advertisements for the dine to donates on social media, and I put them in the PTA newsletter as well. We also sent individual requests to people about donations, so the people that are in the Student Visionaries group sent emails and letters to friends and family.

Q: Is this something you would like SHS to continue in future years?

A: Yes, I definitely think that the group that we have now would like to do it again and would like to expand. You can have as many people as possible on your team, so we had 10 team members this year and would love to double that next year. Also now that we have experience, we can be more efficient. Everyone that is involved right now has been active and positive with ideas for next year, and I definitely think it’s something that we will do again.

Overall, the Solon High School Student Visionaries of the Year Campaign raised $13,400 for the Leukemia & Lymphoma society.

Below is a video with Medha Gantala.