Alexis Paget (far right) with (l-r) Avery Byrne, Kennedy Terry and Brittany Parsons. These friends from high school joined Alexis’ campaign team, Team Crush, and helped raise funds.

Alexis Paget wins National “Hero Award” for the2018 Students of the Year Campaign

Sixteen-year-old Ridge Point High School student, Alexis Paget of Missouri City has won the national “Hero Award”, for her extraordinary fundraising efforts during the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society’s Texas Gulf Coast Chapter’s 2018 Students of the Year campaign. She ran her own fundraising campaign as part of LLS’s innovative program, “Students of the Year” and qualified by leading a multi-generation team to raise over $61,000. Her class raised an astonishing $350,000 to help create a world without blood cancer.

Candidates for Students of the Year sign up for a fierce seven-week fundraising competition, for which they appeal to family and friends to raise critical funds, which LLS deploys to advance breakthrough treatments and to support the more than 1.3 million blood cancer patients in the U.S. The candidates/teams who raise the most money at the end of the competition earn the title Student(s) of the Year. Top local fundraisers become eligible to win the national title. The students raise money in honor of a local patient hero who is currently battling or is in remission from a blood cancer.

When Paget learned she had won the national “Hero Award” she was thrilled. “I was honored to have been selected to run for Student of the Year. I never imagined my team would have been so successful in making an impact on these terrible diseases. I am thankful to have had the opportunity to help blood cancer patients and families everywhere,” she said.

Paget ran an incredible campaign. She was first nominated by her mother, Stephanie Moritz, who was the 2017 Woman of the Year Runner-Up. Paget ran her campaign in honor and memory of her grandfather, who unfortunately lost his battle with Acute Myeloid Leukemia (AML).

“Congratulations to Alexis and all our candidates, supporters and volunteers who helped to make Students of the Year a huge success,” said Billie Sue Parris, LLS’s Texas Gulf Coast executive director. “For these incredible individuals, it’s not just about winning a title, it’s all about the impact they are making in their communities and how important their contribution and efforts are in the advancement of blood cancer cures.”

Visit studentseries.org/txg/students-of-the-year to learn more about the program and how it might work for you or someone you know.

Alexis Paget displays her donation check.

Alexis Paget (second from left) with her family (l-r): Mackenzie Paget, sister, Stephanie Moritz, mom, and Sasha Moritz, step-dad.