Team Arrow aims high for Leukemia & Lymphoma Society

by Dan Holland

For Brecksville-Broadview Heights High School juniors Megan Macy, Sydney Macy and Nikolina Racic, being chosen as the school representatives for the 2023 Northeast Ohio Student Visionaries of the Year Campaign to raise money to benefit the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society was a high honor.

All three were part of last year’s team, which was the second time a team represented the school to compete against other area high schools to try to raise the most money.

“There was a team last year at BBHHS called ‘Team Telescope,’ led by Kate Butler, Bridget Butler and Ella DeTray, that raised $61,000,” Racic said. “All three of us were team members on the campaign, and toward the end of the campaign, we were nominated by them to lead this year. They thought we would all be a good fit to lead this year’s campaign at the school and continue in trying to establish a tradition at the high school.”

Funds benefit LLS’s 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 program raised more than $1 million last year within the Greater Cleveland region to fight blood cancer.

Ohio has five regions in the nationwide effort with Team Arrow’s 23 members – all BBHHS students – competing against more than 30 other regional high school teams. Scholarship awards are available to the team that raises the most money. Team Arrow aims to raise at least $40,000 this year during the seven-week campaign, which runs through March 18.

Megan Macy hopes to build on the success of last year’s team.

“Just in seeing all of the success that the team had last year – and seeing how cancer can impact so many people in the world today – it was just eye opening to have an opportunity to become the candidates for this team and raise money for such a good cause,” she said. “We’ve put so much time and effort into doing everything we can so far into this campaign, and it’s cool to see how much the hard work is paying off so far.”

Each team fundraises in honor of a young, local blood cancer patient. Team Arrow’s ‘honor hero’ is a 20-year-old student named Summer, who attends Cedarville University.

“She wasn’t able to be there for the kickoff, but she prepared a video through which she spoke to us for the event,” Sydney Macy said. “She has leukemia and had undergone her last treatment a few months ago. She’s doing much better and is in remission right now.”

The team planned events at all three schools in the district, which included a “Light a Night” event during a Jan. 31 high school basketball game. The group also planned a Valentine’s Bingo Night at Brecksville-Broadview Heights Elementary School, with proceeds benefitting the campaign.

“We really wanted to bring everyone together through this campaign as well as bring awareness to it. So, we planned events for the high school, middle school and elementary school as well as spreading the word through the school board meetings,” Racic said. “We shared a little bit about the campaign just to bring an awareness and let people know what we’re doing and how it can impact others. There are so many people who have been impacted by cancer, and we really just want to make a difference.”

“We’re so thankful to have such a wonderful team,” Sydney Macy said. “We wouldn’t be able to do what we do without them, and we’re really indebted to them for all their efforts.”

For information on Team Arrow, visit https://events.lls.org/noh/svoynoh23/tarrow.