The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society’s (LLS) Big Climb MPLS was held on April 5, 2014, at Capella Tower in Minneapolis. Goldleaf’s Fund Control Administrator Jan Sachariason and her family participated in this year’s event. Jan, her husband Rob, who is in remission from Hairy Cell Leukemia, and their son Jack volunteered their time while their oldest son Tyler participated in the climb. The climb consists of a either a leisurely climb or a challenging race up 48 floors or 95 floors of the Capella Tower. This year’s event had over 600 climbers.
According to the Big Climb MPLS website, during the last 60 year, LLS has invested more than $875 million to develop blood cancer therapies, helping advance many of the drugs already approved for blood cancer patients. And since the early 1960’s the survival rate for many blood cancer patients has doubled, tripled and even quadrupled. Still, more than 1 million Americans are currently battling a blood cancer, with leukemia alone causing more deaths than any other cancer among children and young adults under the age of 20. Every 4 minutes someone is diagnosed with a blood cancer and every 10 minutes someone dies.
All donations from Big Climb help support the mission of LLS: To cure leukemia, lymphoma, Hodgkin’s disease, myeloma and to help improve the quality of life of patients and their families. LLS supports research in the U.S., Canada and 10 other countries. In 2012, LLS awarded $2.9 million dollars in grants to the Mayo Clinic and University of Minnesota. Each day more than 347 LLS sponsored researchers come closer to our goal of finding a cure.
