Local Student Council Event Raises Thousands to Fight Blood Cancer

DALLAS, TX – Hundreds of Highland Park High School community members participated in the Highland Park Student Council’s Spring Benefit, a Spikeball Tournament and Battle of the Bands competition. International non-profit DKMS was chosen as the beneficiary of this year’s event as a result of community donor drives held for local patients searching for matching blood stem cell donors, including the younger brother of a Highland Park High School senior who battled leukemia, a form of blood cancer, and needed a transplant from an unrelated donor.

“Spring Benefit is especially important to Student Council at HPHS because it is our main annual fundraiser. This year, we celebrated the 15th year of HPHS’s Spring Benefit. Over that span of time, due to the generosity of the HP/UP community, we have raised $193, 275 for local disease research, C.O.P.S, education for orphans in Zambia, Captain Hope’s Kids, Bonton Farms, and an HP alum scholarship.

This year, we are proud to add over $17,000 for DKMS to that total. But what I am most proud of is that we also had over 50 kids swab to enter the bone marrow registry to potentially become live-saving donors. After being unable to have an event this large the past few years due to COVID, I was so excited to finally have the opportunity for all students to come together again. I could not be more excited about the success of the event, and am proud to raise the funds this year for an organization that’s near to my own heart.” Ava Tiffany –Executive President, Highland Park High School Student Council

Attendees of the benefit were given the opportunity to join the donor pool of potential blood stem cell donors. For many patients fighting blood cancer and other blood disorders, a transplant from a matching donor is the key a second chance at life, however, around 70% of patients in need of a donor must search outside of their family for a matching donor.

Charlie Stephens knows the importance of finding a matching donor firsthand thanks to an unrelated donor who gave his mother a second chance at life when Charlie was just 9 years old. “Joining the registry is so important because it gives people battling blood cancer a second chance at life. It’s an easy process to get swabbed and to join the registry. There is such little risk vs such a high reward; saving another person’s life.” Charlie now serves as the president of the DKMS Club at Highland Park High School, which helped attendees join the donor pool during the benefit.

DKMS is grateful to the Highland Park community for showing up and supporting our mission, “I am so impressed by how these young people came together to put on this great benefit. Together, we can make sure every patient fighting blood cancer has a second chance at life.” – Teddi Wiggins, DKMS US Development Coordinator