Cancer Awareness Week Draws Support
To honor those fighting cancer and provide crucial financial support for research, Xavier’s Student Council kicked off Cancer Awareness Week on March 23.
Members of the Student Council have sold bow ties and buttons, hosted a bake sale, and will hold a dress down day tomorrow to raise funds for cancer research. Specific days of the week highlighted prostate and breast cancer, marking illnesses that have affected members of the Xavier community in large numbers, Student Council moderator Alicia Psillos said.
Xavier’s support of cancer research is longstanding. While Cancer Awareness Week itself is only a few years old, the varsity basketball team has participated in the Coaches vs. Cancer Festival benefiting the American Cancer Society (ACS) for 15 years. The team contributed to this important effort once again in 2015, and most of the funds raised this week will support Coaches vs. Cancer and ACS. “We are proud once again as a school and program to be at the forefront of cancer awareness and to be a longtime participant and financial contributor to the Coaches vs. Cancer Festival,” said head basketball coach Joe McGrane.
Cancer Awareness Week has a personal meaning for many Xavier students this year because it hits close to home. One of the week’s highlights was acute lymphoblastic leukemia survivor Chris Gemelli ’16’s speech to the junior and senior classes on Tuesday, March 24. Gemelli, who missed the entire 2013-14 school year while undergoing intensive treatment at the Stephen D. Hassenfeld Children’s Center for Cancer and Blood Disorders at NYU Langone Medical Center, described his cancer fight with courage, humor, and positivity. “Don’t moan about your misfortunes. Learn from them,” Gemelli urged his peers. “Evolve into a better version of yourself, and fight for a better tomorrow.”
Erin Lauinger, LCSW, senior pediatric social worker at the Hassenfeld Center (one of the nation’s leading pediatric outpatient facilities for the treatment of childhood cancers and blood disorders), was on hand for Gemelli’s speech. She has provided care to the junior for the past year and a half and supervises the NYU Youth Advisory Council, of which Gemelli was chosen to be a part. She saluted his bravery in telling his story. “He is such an articulate young man. There’s a greater purpose to him,” Lauinger said. “And I was really moved by the support that Xavier showed him. The questions that those teenage boys were asking were so profoundly sensitive.”
Both Lauinger and Gemelli urged students to mark Xavier’s Cancer Awareness Week by supporting cancer research in any way possible. As Gemelli told his fellow students, “Donating even a small amount this week could make a huge difference in someone’s life. So please support the fight to find a cure to cancer.”