Student Visionary Award

Leukemia, Lymphoma Society Honors Sophomore

After raising the most money for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society against other students who were also driven to find cancer cures, sophomore Vincie Nelson won 2023 Student Visionary of the year from the society.

“I got involved with LLS because my grandpa was diagnosed with leukemia,” Nelson said.

After Nelson’s grandpa was diagnosed with leukemia, she and her family had the desire to help people who have Leukemia. Nelson’s uncle helped a lot through her campaign and helped to jump start Nelson’s funds.

“I would host restaurant nights and would get back proceeds from those places which brought in quite a lot of money,” Nelson said. The Student Visionary of the year was V’s Flock Squad, led by Vinice Nelson. She dedicated her campaign to her grandfather, a blood cancer survivor. The group raised more than $52,000.

“I also sold Courtwarming T-shirts,” Nelson said. Senior Caroline Ray was the team that helped Nelson raise the money.

“The biggest thing I helped with was selling the Courtwarming t-shirts,” Ray said.

The shirts were sold for the Jan 29 Courtwarming game.

“We made shirts for everyone to wear to the game in the student section,” Ray said.

The front of the shirt said, “Here We Glow,” and the back said, “Birds of a feather, flocking togeth- er to find a cure for cancer.”

“We had students buy the shirts at lunch for $20 each,” Ray said.

All the proceeds of the shirts went to Nelson's campaign. Senior Elizabeth Boehm was also on Nelson’s team to help raise money.

“I helped her come up with a design for shirts to sell to help raise money for her campaign,” Boehm said.

They sold the shirts the week leading up to Courtwarming.

“She did a good job and proved to the team that she could do it,” Boehm said.

All the proceeds Nelson got from selling Super Bowl squares also went toward her campaign.

"We also had silent auction packages that were up during the ceremony,” Nelson said.

The ceremony was at Sporting KC’s Children’s Mercy Park. Nelson brought her team members from school and family members who helped her throughout the campaign. Nelson’s team members were seniors Ray and Boehm, junior Addie Hotchkiss and sophomores Phillip David Henerandez and Hannah Bowers.

“They had all candidates in attendance, and they talked about each team,” Nelson said.

After the speeches about each candidate, the winners were announced. Nelson was named Student Visionary of the year.//

Written by Trinidi Webb