Meet 2020 Scholar Meaghan
Our College Scholars receive a financial scholarship to help with academic expenses. Each scholar commits to completing a project of their choosing related to childhood cancer advocacy, with support and mentorship from the Children's Cancer Cause team.
Meet all seven of our 2020 scholars here, and meet program alumni here.
“All of my past experiences taught me not only the necessity but also the power of advocacy.”
Meaghan’s Story
Meaghan, of Potomac, Maryland, was diagnosed with Hodgkin’s Lymphoma when she was 15 years old.
“The four months of treatment I went through were horrible. Still, I maintained the idea that I would finish my treatment and I would pretend it never happened,” Meaghan wrote in her application. “The only problem was that it had happened. And I didn’t feel normal; I felt helpless.”
Meaghan found a voice and a purpose in becoming a volunteer for cancer charities, like the LLS Light the Night walk. “I started to feel a little less helpless. My body was no longer a passive battlefield in my fight against cancer: I was a soldier in a much larger war against cancer that extended beyond just me.”
Today, Meaghan is attending Vanderbilt University and majoring in chemical engineering.
Advocacy Project
Meaghan wants to empower other adolescent and young adult (AYA) cancer patients to be strong self-advocates.
“When I was was first diagnosed with cancer, I had no idea how to advocate for myself and ask the right questions,” said Meaghan. “As a result, I ended up putting up with a slew of side effects that could have been prevented and managed if I had the information to plan preemptively, and if I had the confidence to self-advocate. I was unsure of how to avail myself of the support and resources offered to me.”
For her advocacy project, she is creating an app to help AYA patients better navigate available support and resources. She already has a design concept based on feedback from an AYA survey she conducted, and she is now learning about coding and app creation so she can implement the design.
“I cannot change what happened to me, but I can make the experience better for the next person going through it,” said Meaghan. “I still haven’t figured out why bad things happen to good people. I did, however, figure out that we can choose to actively work against these bad things rather than wallowing about them.”