Millburn Teens Raise Money For Leukemia In Honor Of Mom

MILLBURN, NJ — Two Millburn teenagers, Connor Davisson, 18, and Julia Davisson, 16, will raise money for the next seven weeks as part of The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society’s 2021 Students of the Year campaign. The Davissons were inspired to take action by their mother Shannon Davisson’s battle with chronic myeloid leukemia and the support their family has received from the local community.

Students of the Year is a national seven-week challenge through which high school student leaders raise funds and awareness for the fight against blood cancers. The funds raised 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.

Since the campaign’s inception in 2014, the Students of the Year program has made an incredible impact on blood cancer research, patient aid, and community outreach programs. Last year alone, there were more than 5,000 high school students participating throughout the country.

Stacey Villafuerte, Campaign Development Manager from LLS said, “This is truly an elite group! We count ourselves lucky to have Connor and Julia as part of this campaign to represent Millburn High School.”

Julia said, “We realized that when people come together to take action for something or someone they care about, these efforts put together can really add up into something big and meaningful."

Julia and Connor have asked friends, family members and coaches to join them on their mission and named their team “Team Blood Bound” given their family connection to this cause and each other.

They are joined by a team of 18 others including their mother and father, other students from Millburn, Morristown Beard, and Oak Knoll schools, Connor’s football coach, and friends and family in Massachusetts, Ohio, Pennsylvania and California.

These teens have a six figure fundraising goal and they believe they can achieve it. “When we set our initial goal, it seemed like a really big target but once we started planning, it became obvious that we could easily meet it so we doubled it” says Connor. “During the short time we have been planning this campaign, we have seen a close family friend successfully battle a very aggressive lymphoma and suddenly lost one of my friends and teammates to complications from an undiagnosed leukemia."

He was referring to Robbie Almgren, a Millburn High School athlete who passed away unexpectedly last month from previously undiagnosed leukemia.

"These are very difficult things for us," Connor said. "but they give us more motivation to make a difference and give us something positive we can focus on in the short term.”

Fundraising in general has been hampered by Covid 19 and this campaign is no different. Given the limitations of in-person gatherings, most of the fundraising will happen via online donations.

Team Blood Bound also has several different ways that companies and businesses can be involved from donating auction items for the virtual gala, sponsorship opportunities with many benefit levels as well as tribute pages in the gala program for those who wish to honor someone special.

Interested companies can email teambloodbound@gmail.com for more information.

The teens kick off their fundraising this Saturday.

To learn more about their story and to donate, please visit their website bit.ly/LLSBLOODBOUND. This year’s campaign will culminate with the Grand Finale Celebration on March 6.

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