Blood Cancer United: High School Students Raise Funds for Research with a Real Impact

Every three minutes someone is diagnosed with blood cancer.

It is a statistic that delivers a staggering reality and underpins Blood Cancer United’s annual Student Visionaries of the Year campaign, a seven-week fundraising effort that places high school students at the center of both outreach and leadership. Locally, the effort to raise $200K has been led by juniors Jack Hyatt and Sebastian Fabio, who have spent the past several weeks organizing meetings, building a team, and engaging their community in support of blood cancer research.

Guiding them is Casey Kang, a campaign development manager with Blood Cancer United. Her role is to mentor the students through the process, helping them develop the practical skills needed to run a campaign while keeping the focus on its broader purpose. For Kang, that purpose is not theoretical.

Before joining the organization, Kang spent years as a patient – a three-time blood cancer survivor whose cure came from the very kind of research this fundraiser supports. 

Diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic leukemia in 2014, Kang underwent an extended and difficult course of treatment. There were brief periods of remission, followed by relapses, and eventually a point where standard options had been exhausted. What remained was uncertain.

At that stage, she was offered access to an experimental immunotherapy developed through research supported by Blood Cancer United. The treatment had limited data behind it and no guarantee of success. It was, in many ways, a final option.

It worked.

The therapy brought her into remission and ultimately became part of a new class of treatments now approved for use in patients with similar diagnoses.

Her experience now serves as a direct example of how research funding translates into real outcomes.

That connection has shaped the way this year’s campaign is carried out.

For Hyatt and Fabio, the work has extended well beyond fundraising totals. The Student Visionaries program is structured as a leadership initiative, asking participants to take on responsibilities that mirror professional environments. Students are expected to organize teams, communicate with donors, and manage a campaign on a fixed timeline.

Much of that process has been new. It has required learning how to reach out to people in a formal setting, how to follow up, and how to maintain consistency across weeks of outreach. It has also required navigating the challenges of team management, where keeping peers engaged can be as demanding as securing donations.

Kang’s mentorship has focused on those details. The emphasis is on communication, preparation, and follow-through. Students are encouraged to approach the campaign not just as a cause, but as an exercise in building skills they will carry forward.

At the same time, the cause itself remains central.

The scale of blood cancer is significant. In addition to the frequency of diagnoses, roughly 1.8 million Americans are either living with the disease or in remission.

For many involved in the campaign, those numbers reflect personal experiences with family members or friends.

That awareness has informed the tone of the team’s outreach. It is not simply about meeting a fundraising goal. It is about supporting research that continues to expand treatment options and improve survival rates.

The effort has included a series of community-based initiatives, including a recent fundraiser at Renaud’s Bakery in Montecito, where a portion of proceeds supported the campaign.

The event has already taken place, but it formed part of a broader push during the campaign’s final stretch.

That stretch is now coming to a close.

The Student Visionaries campaign ends this Friday, March 20, marking the conclusion of seven weeks of sustained work. Even so, the students have emphasized that support for Blood Cancer United is not limited to that timeline. Donations to the organization remain open, and the need for research continues.

For Kang, that continuity is clear. The treatment that helped save her life was once experimental, supported by the same kind of fundraising efforts now being carried out by the students she mentors.

For Hyatt and Fabio, the campaign has provided a first look at how that cycle works. The work they have done over these past weeks is immediate and measurable. The impact it supports will unfold over time.  

Visit https://tinyurl.com/BCU-Jack-Sebastian to make a donation