These students are trying to ‘Fund the Cure’

continued from front page funds raised will benefit the LLS mission, — to find a cure for leukemia, lymphoma, Hodgkin’s disease, and myeloma, and to improve the quality of life of patients and their families.

The team specifically chose to donate their money to the patient support sector of the mission.

The three students have their reasons as to why they joined the effort and decided to lead their team. Ignatiou, for example, joined to honor his uncle.

“I joined this year’s campaign in memory of my uncle George Ignatiou,” Ignatiou said. “In 1990, he passed away after a battle with nonHodgkins lymphoma. While I didn’t get the chance to meet him, I saw what his loss did to my family, and I don’t want any other family to lose someone to cancer.”

To get the ball rolling, the team organized fundraisers selling squares for the Super Bowl, selling candy bars, and collecting change.

“There’s not a certain amount of fundraisers we need to do, but it’s about getting involved,” Monahan said. “How much you do, how much you put in, is what you get out of it.”

The team has already raised over $2,000.

They will host a “Taco Tuesday” night fundraiser at the East Meadow Chipotle at 2312 Hempstead Turnpike on March 7 from 4 to 8 p.m. They will also collaborate with John F. Kennedy High School seniors from Bellmore, Beverly Kleinman and Alison Wohlstetter. There will be a bingo fundraiser at the North Merrick firehouse at 2095 Camp Ave., in Merrick on March 4 at 7 p.m.

The East Meadow students were first introduced to Kleinman and Wohlstetter at an LLS event for all of the teams in November. They decided to collaborate because the girls’ team — “Good Vibes Save Lives” — is only composed of a few members. Kleinman has been a candidate for the student visionary campaign for the past three years.

“It’s about helping each other and our towns are so close,” Monahan said. “It allows us to kind of cooperate there and it’s about raising as much money as you can, so the more people, the better.”

Ignatiou said that the tips that the girls have given them have helped them to reach out to businesses to secure sponsors, manage their social media presence, and stay organized.

“Even in our biggest year we had maybe 17 members,” Wohlstetter said. “It’s really exciting to see how many people really want to contribute to this type of fundraising, and I’m really excited to work with them to figure it out.”

For Wohlstetter and Kleinman, it’s all about community activities. They’ve done bake sales, Zumba classes, art classes and other fundraisers. So far they’ve raised