Elle Stearns ’23, organizes a community event to “brighten the days of the children at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center.”
For Valentine’s Day, I wanted to bring the Deerfield community together to make Valentine cards for childhood cancer patients. A few weeks ago, I met Jennifer James, the founder of The Scarlett Fund at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York City. Mrs. James created The Scarlett Fund to raise money and awareness for pediatric cancer research at MSK in honor of her daughter, Scarlett, who was diagnosed with T Cell Lymphoma when she was six. MSK is a leader in pediatric cancer research and it treats more children with cancer than any other institution in the world. In addition to raising money to support MSK’s groundbreaking research, The Scarlett Fund also supports individual patients by organizing letter-writing drives. These cards really brighten the days of the children at MSK.
I organized an event for Deerfield students to write cards for The Scarlett Fund’s Valentine’s day drive. Students made colorful valentines for 30 different children. The Deerfield community managed to make over 100 cards! I then sorted the cards by their recipient and send them to the TSF office to be delivered. Through this process, I have learned how gratifying it is to serve others and also how much planning needs to go into events like these. This event also taught me the power of our student body!
I would not have been able to send these Valentines without the support of the Deerfield community, the CSGC, and Mrs. James. I would also like to thank the Workman family for their support, without which this project would not have been possible.
