Meet Shamari: 2022 College Scholar

Our College Scholars receive a financial scholarship to help with academic expenses, and each scholar commits to undertaking a volunteer project of their choosing related to childhood cancer advocacy, with support and mentorship from the Children's Cancer Cause team.

Shamari’s Story

Shamari, of Cleveland Heights, Ohio, was diagnosed with osteosarcoma when she was 13 years old.

“After a couple of months of excruciating pain while playing basketball in the 8th grade, I went to see the sports medicine doctor who noticed my right pelvic bone was enlarged. From there, I had an MRI and a biopsy,” recalls Shamari. “The last words a teenager ever expects to hear are ‘you have cancer.’ Those words sent chills down my spine.”

Shamari was treated with chemotherapy and surgery to remove the tumor from her pelvis. She’s been in remission since January 2019.

As a high school senior, she was an honor student, field hockey captain, yearbook editor, and active member of the Black Student Union. Today, she studies International Affairs at The George Washington University.

Shamari’s Advocacy Project

For her scholarship volunteer project, Shamari wants to create a peer tutor program through her school district, to ensure that future students with cancer have a “buddy” to help with schoolwork and maintaining connections to the classroom during treatment.

“I would make this my project because when I was diagnosed with cancer, I missed half of my eighth-grade year and half of my ninth-grade year. When I came back to school in my second semester of freshman year, I was extremely lost,” she told us. “I was forced to learn and to cope with the overwhelming feelings of being back in school on my own. It was an extremely stressful time for me. I want to help make the transition back to school easier for other children.”