Junior Kennadi Kuzowsky has recently teamed up with the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society (LLS) as a student leader to help spread awareness of and raise money for blood cancer patients. The LLS is a familiar cause to her family since her dad was diagnosed with leukemia.
“In the summer I was looking at medical programs because I wanna go into the medical field for a future career and I saw this thing with LLS and my dad has cancer so we knew of the organization already,” Kuzowski said. “It’s called Student Visionaries, and it’s a program that teaches students how to raise money and awareness for cancer patients and I decided to apply for it.”
According to Kuzowski, this campaign means a lot to her because she and her family have had to deal with the struggles of cancer first-hand and know how it can affect people’s lives. While she said her dad is her biggest inspiration in starting this initiative, she also wanted to be a part of something where she could help make other families’ lives a little bit easier by helping with fundraising money.
In order to become a student leader, Kuzowsky said she had to answer questions as part of the application process. As there are a limited number of candidates selected per state, Kuzowsky is one of several to represent New Jersey.
Once she was accepted, Kuzowksy said she had to create a team and find ways to raise money and spread awareness for the organization.
“LLS has obviously helped me and then there were a lot of corporate sponsorships that I had to have meetings with and they donated money, as well as a lot of dine and donates have donated money,” Kuzowsky said.
Kuzowsky held her first fundraiser at Raising Canes in January in Cherry Hill. She also had fundraisers at Chipotle and Panera in February. Her most recent fundraiser was held at Hot Wheelz roller skating rink in Cherry Hill at the end of February. Her fundraisers were successful with the help from the CHS wrestling team along with other students and families. Kuzowsky’s future fundraising plans include additional dine and donates, T-shirt sales, and a possible fundraiser with Regal Movie Theaters, etc. Kuzowsky said there have also been some corporate sponsorships with whom she’s had meetings with that have donated money to her team.
In addition to raising money and spreading awareness, Kuzowsky plans to do even more in her future. She said she hopes to become a pediatric oncologist one day because she wants to be able to help future patients. Through the work she’s done as a student leader, she’s gained more empathy and wants to encourage people to learn more about medicine while advocating for cancer patients.
“I would say my goal is to encourage other students and people that are interested in medicine to figure out any ways that they can help people who are struggling with diseases and just to become more educated on medicine itself,” Kuzowsky said.
According to Kuzowsky, one of the biggest challenges she has faced is trying to meet her fundraising goal of $30,000.
“It’s a little intimidating so I would say the most challenging part is trying to find as many ways as possible and the time to get to that big number because it is hard to ask a lot of people for money,” Kuzowsky said.
However, Kuzowsky said she has also learned a lot from working on this campaign, including how to navigate harder challenges in life.
“I’ve learned that it’s okay to take risks to accomplish your goals but at the same time it’s okay to not meet your goals, obviously with a nonprofit campaign there is a big number you are aiming for and any effort you put into something is always worth it in the end.”
Kuzowsky credits Cinnaminson High School as supportive in her process as the school helps bring awareness to and promote her fundraisers.
Despite the project taking a lot of time, Kuzowsky is passionate about the cause. She said she hopes her work will help and inspire other people to do the same.
In order to manage her time, she said she makes To-Do lists and sets aside time to focus on the organization.
“It does take up a lot of time, I do have a job too and school is obviously busy too, but I just kind of make to-do lists and I set times aside for this because it is something I am very passionate about,” Kuzowsky said. “I obviously had to make some adjustments in my schedule and things I’ve done in the past, but I definitely want to focus on this because it’s very meaningful to me.”
