Voices, a Podcast from the Seneca Valley School District

Student Visionaries of the Year: Inspiring a Better Tomorrow with Mr. Samuel Boyer II and Miss Roshini Umesh

• Seneca Valley School District

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Two Seneca Valley students are working together to make a difference by raising money for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society. In this episode, you'll learn all about their Student Visionaries of the Year fundraiser, ways to donate and how this campaign supports blood cancer patients.

IN THIS EPISODE, WE WILL REVIEW


SPECIAL GUESTS
Seneca Valley juniors, Mr. Samuel Boyer II and Miss Roshini Umesh

Mr. Samuel Boyer II is a junior at Seneca Valley Senior Highschool. He is the vice president of the Key Club as well as Future Business Leaders of America. He is also involved in organizing a financial literacy presentation for the senior class.

Miss Roshini Umesh is an aspiring physician-scientist who is dedicated to making a difference in her community. She founded HEART Volunteers, a program that supports hospice patients through personalized care and meaningful initiatives. Miss Umesh combines her affinity for healthcare with policy, and she hopes to make a difference through legislation. She is also involved in Academic Decathlon, Youth and Government, Science Honor Society, and plays the piano and violin.

FULL TRANSCRIPT (with timecode)

 00:00:02:27 - 00:00:10:14

Welcome to Voices, a national award-winning podcast brought to you by the Seneca Valley School District. 

 00:00:11:08 - 00:00:31:05

Jeff Krakoff: This is Jeff Krakoff. Today we have two special guests. They are 11th graders at Seneca Valley High School, and the topic is a fundraiser for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society. So I'd like to introduce Samuel Boyer II, as well as Roshini Umesh. Thanks for coming on with us today. 

 00:00:31:27 - 00:00:32:28

Roshini Umesh: Thank you for having us. 

 00:00:33:00 - 00:00:33:26

Samuel Boyer II: It's a pleasure to be here. 

 00:00:34:08 - 00:00:43:23

Jeff Krakoff: All right. So I'm sure most people have heard of leukemia and lymphoma. But tell us a little bit about the organization, Leukemia and Lymphoma Society. 

 00:00:44:21 - 00:01:09:11

Roshini Umesh: Yeah. So basically the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society, it's a nonprofit organization that is dedicated to fundraising money, um, for all blood cancers, not just leukemia and lymphoma. And mainly they want to improve the quality of care for patients, um, the quality of life, um, improve legislation. Um, and just more, um, more effective treatments as well. 

 00:01:10:09 - 00:01:28:15

Samuel Boyer II: And how we are involved in the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society is that they hold a program called the Student Visionaries of the year, and students across the Pennsylvania area raise money. And those financial services are then distributed to patients that we represent. And that's what we're doing. 

 00:01:28:25 - 00:01:38:26

Jeff Krakoff: Okay. So for either of you, how did you become aware of this society and about this program and what made you want to get involved? 

 00:01:39:21 - 00:02:20:11

Samuel Boyer II: So in Seneca Valley, I'm involved in our purpose program. And in that purpose program, one of the students approached me, the individual that had this program last year, and they asked if they would want to hand it down to me, and I accepted. So that's how I got introduced to it. And I am a financial person. Um, so I like the the networking aspect of it and the leadership role that I was in. However, the subject matter was something that I wasn't specifically familiar with, and that's why I brought Roshini along as my as my co-lead. So I introduced it to her and that's how we got involved. 

 00:02:20:21 - 00:02:25:04

Jeff Krakoff: Got it. So, are you friends? Have you worked on things like this before together? 

 00:02:25:29 - 00:03:04:18

Roshini Umesh: Um, I mean, we we've been friends since, like, start of high school, um, freshman year. Yeah. And probably, like, the summer before junior year is when we, um, really started working close together and stuff. Um, and. Yeah, I mean, I mainly got involved in this because in our very first meeting with the campaign director, Erica Gibbons, um, one point that she talked about was policy and advocacy, um, which we'll talk about later in our campaign. And I love health care and policy together as well. I feel like it's such a niche understanding, like a niche topic. Um, and it just really grabbed my attention. And I really wanted to expand and help my community as well. 

 00:03:05:09 - 00:03:27:14

Jeff Krakoff: Well, thank you so much for getting involved. So I do have some questions. So the program is called the Student Visionaries of the Year. What exactly is it? I know there's a fundraising component that we're going to talk about, but is there also any kind of training and other aspects? You know, whichever one wants to to tackle that one first tell us what it is. 

 00:03:29:09 - 00:04:30:22

Samuel Boyer II: Yeah. So the the Student Visionaries of the Year program is the program that's held by the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society that challenges students across the Pennsylvania area. And it's it's also in a national program. But for what we're competing in, it's confined to the area. And basically teams from all of the districts are formed. Um, the teams can be up to 13 people, and our team is multigenerational. So we have college student involved. We have a teacher involved, another adult involved. So you go and form these teams and then between the dates February 7th and March 28th, you fundraise. And you can do that through a variety of ways. You can go business sponsorships, you can hold events, you can go on podcasts like exactly what we're doing. Um, and that's that's our role in the Student Visionaries of the Year program. And I'll hand it off to Roshini. 

 00:04:31:21 - 00:05:09:26

Roshini Umesh: Yeah. And much of what kind of goes unnoticed by the public, um, because the public sees between February 7  and March 28th when we actually have our campaign running, and you guys can donate. Um, but what most of it goes unseen is the planning and prepping, and we've been putting time towards, um, our campaign all the way back since September. We've been reaching out to businesses we've been organizing with our school districts. Um, and we've been drafting emails and letters to send. Um, so it's really something that takes about like 3 to 4 months to plan in advance. Um, and that's kind of like the training aspect, the behind the scenes aspect that goes into this. 

 00:05:10:06 - 00:05:24:18

Jeff Krakoff: So a lot of prep work to get ready for that window of fundraising. I'm curious. You mentioned something interesting. A multigenerational team. How did you go about assembling that team and what what kinds of folks are on it? 

 00:05:25:19 - 00:06:31:10

Samuel Boyer II: Yeah. So majority of our team, so seven members are juniors just like us, our friends. So that was very easy to assemble. We just asked our friends if they wanted to do it with us, and they were all willing to come along. We have a college student. He he's an alumni of Seneca Valley School District. He just graduated last year. So I just sent him over a text and he got involved too. Um, another member of the team is an old teacher of ours. Her name is Ms. Mihalik. She was an English teacher, and she had to retire, um, because she had cancer. So it was it was kind of a perfect opportunity for her to get involved and support something that was very close to home for her, and she was willing to come on the team for us. And then my aunt. She lives in Florida and she's a jeweler, so she's been helping us out, um, and making making stuff for us to raffle off and things like that. So, yeah, all close contacts we assembled with close contacts. 

 00:06:31:21 - 00:06:42:01

Jeff Krakoff: So it sounds like a great team has been assembled now. You mentioned the fundraising. It's February 7th through March 28th. Do you have a particular goal in mind? 

 00:06:43:15 - 00:06:59:14

Roshini Umesh: Yeah. So right now our goal is $50K. Um, it might seem big. We're just a couple of high school students working together, but, um, we're fairly certain that we'll reach the goal, maybe even surpass it. Um, but, I mean, we can only hope because. Yeah, but we'll see. 

 00:07:00:14 - 00:07:10:14

Jeff Krakoff: That's a great goal. So where does the money go to? Does it go to the society? Is it a particular person or place? How does that all work? 

 00:07:11:21 - 00:07:55:16

Roshini Umesh: Yeah. So, um, the money is kind of each, um, team that raises their money. Their money will be attached to their name. And we get kind of like a portfolio setup. And it's distributed to like the entire Leukemia and Lymphoma Society. But every time it gets used for financial services, for a patient, um, specifically, we have like an honored hero, um, someone who's used LLS services. Um, her name is Francesca this year. She's from Moon. And, um, they really benefited from the financial aspect from LLS. And so any time our money is used towards a patient or treatment or legislation, um, we'll get notified. And that's kind of how, um, the fundraising, how the money gets used up. 

 00:07:56:04 - 00:08:04:19

Jeff Krakoff: Okay. Did you get assigned to that particular person or did you choose who you want to be, the beneficiary of your fundraising? 

 00:08:05:16 - 00:08:19:11

Samuel Boyer II: So all the campaigns in the Pennsylvania area, they're all representing this one individual, Francesca. So we were assigned to Francesca, and it's been great to meet her and get to talk to her and represent her in this competition. 

 00:08:19:23 - 00:08:23:02

Jeff Krakoff: Wonderful. What else can you tell us about Francesca? 

 00:08:25:02 - 00:09:08:14

Roshini Umesh: Um. From what I can remember, I don't want to get anything wrong. But from what I can remember, from meeting her and talking to her and learning stuff about her is that she got, um, leukemia, I think, um, at a very young age, I think at the age of two, and this was right around the time when it was Covid as well. So already, um, her immune system's, um, suppressed and you have Covid and the pandemic going on. So it was a very tough time for the family in general. Um, and she was battling it for, um, two years. And, um, I think she fully got, um, she's cancer free at the age of four. Um, and now I think she's six years old. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So she's been cancer free for two years now. 

 00:09:08:28 - 00:09:24:01

Samuel Boyer II: Yes. And her family significantly benefited from the financial services, um, that the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society provided. And a lot of those financial services came from the type of campaign that we're running past campaigns. 

 00:09:24:18 - 00:09:32:13

Jeff Krakoff: Okay. So for anybody that's listening, how can they help? Obviously they can donate, but are there other things they can do as well? 

 00:09:33:17 - 00:10:23:24

Samuel Boyer II: So to help us, of course, you can go to our donation page and we will have a link in the description of the podcast for that. And in addition to that, just spreading awareness. If you see us posting on the Seneca Valley pages, if you see us posting through any other organization, just repost us. Tell people about it and share our share our story. And then furthermore, if you're listening and you are a small business owner, a big part of our campaign is seeking business sponsorships. So something that you could do is get in touch with us at an email or phone number that will provide and donate via your business, and that would result in you being recognized on a national stage if we would get far in the competition. And then also a tax write off. 

 00:10:24:11 - 00:10:36:11

Jeff Krakoff: Great. And I'm sure just watch out for February 7th through March 28th. Yeah. Um, every little bit helps. I'm sure, as with any fundraiser. So any amount big or small, it's all good, right? 

 00:10:36:27 - 00:10:37:24

Samuel Boyer II: Yeah, absolutely. 

 00:10:38:25 - 00:10:55:29

Jeff Krakoff: All right. So you mentioned, you know, there will be notes for how to find more information, how to get connected. Is there a place on the Seneca Valley School District website? Is it on the, um, Leukemia Lymphoma Society? Where can people go? 

 00:10:56:24 - 00:11:27:02

Roshini Umesh: Yeah, we can go to our Seneca Valley website. There'll be a link there. Um, directly it kind of acts as like, um, essentially lack of better words, like a PayPal kind of, um, you just donate the money right there, and it goes right to our campaign. Um, so you can find that on the Seneca Valley website as well. And also, um, you can find the link in our Instagram. Um, it's mission.possible.lls. That's our campaign name. Um, there'll be a link there as well. Um, so you can find in those two places mainly. 

 00:11:27:25 - 00:11:37:18

Jeff Krakoff: All right. Is there anything else you'd like to tell people about? Leukemia Lymphoma society. This particular campaign that you're involved in? 

 00:11:39:14 - 00:11:51:09

Roshini Umesh: Um, mainly just, um, donate and get the word out there. The more people it reaches, the more voices um, people hear, um, the better it is for our campaign and for the patients that we represent. 

 00:11:52:28 - 00:11:53:13

Jeff Krakoff: Okay. 

 00:11:54:08 - 00:12:22:29

Jeff Krakoff: So I want I want to, uh, actually congratulate the two of you on taking this step. You know it. It's a rare person that can make a real difference. And it takes action to make this happen. So, again, kudos to the two of you. We've got Samuel Boyer II, and Roshini Umesh, uh, both juniors at Seneca Valley High School. Thanks a lot for everything you do. Best of luck with your campaign, and we'll have to follow up and find out how it went. 

 00:12:23:27 - 00:12:25:09

Roshini Umesh: Thank you so much for having us. 

 00:12:25:11 - 00:12:26:18

Samuel Boyer II: Thank you very much. 

 00:12:26:27 - 00:12:28:03

Roshini Umesh: All right. Have a great day.