Students at St. Joe’s are taking a stand in the fight against cancer in their community and beyond, with the fall semester marking the beginning of St. Joe’s Hawk Hill chapter of the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society (LLS).
Founded in 1949, LLS works to raise funds and awareness for those suffering from leukemia, lymphoma and myeloma. Leukemia is cancer attacking blood cells, lymphoma is cancer attacking cells in the lymph system and myeloma is cancer attacking plasma cells.These diseases together form a wider range of cancers which all attack the circulatory system.
The St. Joe’s chapter on Hawk Hill seeks to connect interested individuals with the resources and mission of LLS.
Sierra Fretz ’25, chair of the chapter’s executive board, said her support of this cause is focused on improving standards of care.
“A big thing with LLS is patient quality and improving healthcare quality,” Fretz said. “That’s one of the things that I’ve really been interested in, especially with my family and some of the things that we’ve experienced, not with cancer but with other illnesses. Patient quality is something that really needs to be focused on within the healthcare field. That needs to be a main driver of how to treat patients and their families with respect.”
Maggie Jones ’25, PharmD ’27, executive chair for the University City campus’ chapter of LLS, has helped Fretz establish a connection with the larger operation and set up their presence on the Hawk Hill campus.
Jones cited St. Joe’s merger with the University of the Sciences as a challenge for the UCity chapter, but also as a great opportunity to spread the message of LLS to a new group of students.
“It hasn’t been easy,” Jones said. “The process has been hard, especially when we were in the middle of the merger … It’s tough. But, ultimately, I pushed it up to the Hawk Hill campus because we’re really trying to target undergraduate students to recruit for LLS on campus, and then we can work on expanding it more.”
Bridget Carter ’26, a member of the Hawk Hill’s chapter of LLS, got involved through the club’s interest meeting. She said some of the organization’s goals are to spread awareness about blood cancers and to be a voice for children with blood cancer.
“We have the Dare to Dream [Project], and this is specifically focused on pediatric cancer patients and working on advocating for them because, most of the time, these pediatric patients can’t advocate for themselves.”
Jones said that a great motivator for many people to get involved, herself included, was being personally affected by leukemia and lymphoma.
“This disease is really, truly near and dear to some people’s hearts,” said Jones. “It’s near and dear to my heart as a future pharmacist. My late grandmother, who I never got to meet, died of lymphoma. And then I have a father figure who’s like a second father to me. He currently has leukemia as well. It’s certainly a worthy cause.”
Carter, who has also been personally impacted by blood cancers, reinforced this.
“I have family, friends and family members that have been diagnosed with blood cancers,” Carter said. “And I think that being involved in this on campus is [a] great way to not only spread awareness, but also meet other people with like-minded goals to further different fundraising and different volunteer opportunities, both at St. Joe’s and for LLS in the general Philadelphia area.”
