Paying it forward
Adobe Stock/paul
As a health care communications company, MJH Life Sciences® is dedicated to partnering with nonprofits and charities who raise money for crippling diseases that do not yet have a cure. To that end, we work, across all our brands and departments, to raise awareness and bring much-needed funding to these various enterprises, an initiative that everyone at MJH embraces, and the numbers bear out. For example, in 2022, the company set a goal of raising $150,000 for the various charities and nonprofits we align with, and I was delighted to see that by year-end we had surpassed that goal, raising a total of $175,000.
One of the organizations I get most excited about is the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society (LLS). To give you some background, in 1944, Robert “Robbie” Roesler de Villiers, a 16-year-old teenager living in New York, New York, received a diagnosis of leukemia. He quickly succumbed to the disease and died a few months later. At the time, those with leukemia, who were often children, typically died within 3 months of receiving their diagnosis, as there were no viable treatments. Five years later, Robbie’s parents, Rudolph and Antoinette de Villiers, frustrated by how little was being done for this devastating illness, began a fundraising program in their son’s name. The foundation steadily grew, evolving into the LLS. Today it is the largest nonprofit health organization dedicated to funding blood cancer research, offering education and patient services throughout the United States.1
This past October, MJH was proud to once again be part of an annual LLS fundraiser in New Jersey and Ohio, where we maintain offices. LLS holds 140 Light the Night walks around the United States, and for MJH, Light the Night Walk New Jersey and Light the Night Walk Cleveland were a great success. Both events brought associates and their families out for a night of festivities, a short fundraising walk, and, as the day turned to dusk, a beautiful moment when illuminated lanterns floated up into the sky—white for survivors, red for supporters, and gold for the memory of loved ones lost to the disease.
-Mike Hennessy Jr President and CEO, MJH Life Sciences®
Reference:
1. Leukemia & Lymphoma Society. Accessed January 18, 2023. https://www.lls.org/
