Community Leaders in the Lehigh Valley Help Find Cancer Cures

by Gregory Seitter

Each year, in the Lehigh Valley, passionate candidates engage in an exciting competition to earn The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society’s (LLS) “Man & Woman of the Year” titles by raising funds for LLS blood cancer research.

The candidates compete in honor of children who are local blood cancer survivors, the Boy & Girl of the Year. This year’s Boy & Girl of the Year are 2-years old Griffin King, who was diagnosed with Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia (ALL) in September of 2014, and 4-years old Lexie Cable, who was also diagnosed ALL just last winter.

Every dollar counts as one vote and the titles are awarded to the man and woman with the most votes at the end of ten weeks. The top local fundraisers in the country win the national titles. To date, these dedicated leaders have helped LLS invest more than $1 billion in research to advance breakthrough therapies that are saving lives today and helping us all achieve the LLS goal of a world without blood cancers.

The 2015 Man & Woman of the Year candidates raised a record-breaking $318,000 for LLS’s mission. Man of the Year was Peter Bruno and the Anne Giglio earned the title of Woman of the Year.

The 2016 Lehigh Valley’s Man & Woman of the Year fundraising competition kicks off March 24, 2016 and concludes at the Grand Finale Celebration on June 2, 2016 at the Renaissance Allentown Hotel.

If you know someone who would be an ideal candidate, you may nominate them or you may want to become a candidate yourself. In any case, you should contact LLS staff member, Pamela Formica, at (484) 245-3190 or email Pamela.Formica@lls.org to discuss the nomination further. Visit www.MWOY.org/epa to learn more about Man & Woman of the Year.

LLS Announces All-Star Candidate

It takes star quality to be nominated for the Man & Woman competition. Now 2012 Man of the Year, Dan Dortic, will show his star power by competing again as an All Star!
The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society’s (LLS) Man & Woman of the Year All Star campaign is a fundraising competition among a select group of MWOY alumni. One former Man and one former Woman of the Year candidate may be chosen to represent their local market as the

All Star Alum for that fiscal year.

All Stars will then conduct their own campaign with their personal fundraising team.
As All Star alumni for the Lehigh Valley market, Dortic will have 10-weeks, beginning the day of his local campaign’s Kickoff, to accumulate the most “votes”. Every dollar raised counts as one vote.

The male and female All Star alumni who raise the most votes during the campaign are named the National Man & Woman of the Year All Stars via a celebratory national webcast in July.

Dortic was named the 2012 Man & of the Year candidate after raising $82,000 for innovative, life-saving cancer research and patient access funded by LLS. His company, Major Hyundai of Stroudsburg, has been the Presenting Sponsor for the Lehigh Valley campaign for the past four years and is just one example of his commitment to LLS’s mission to have a world without blood cancer.

To learn more about LLS and how you can become involved, contact the Eastern Pennsylvania Chapter at (610) 266-8513 or visit www.lls.org/epa.

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