The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society Expands Efforts in West Michigan to Cure Blood Cancer
Community and Business Leaders Meredith Gremel and Andrew Gremel Embrace their Personal Cancer Journey as Opportunity to Increase Awareness and Funds to End Blood Cancers as Co-Chairs of 2022 Light the Night Campaign
GRAND RAPIDS, MI- 1/11/2022: The Michigan Chapter of The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society (LLS) has announced Meredith Gremel and Andrew Gremel, Managing Principal at The Gremel Group, as the Co-Corporate Walk Chairs of its 2022 Light The Night® event, LLS’s annual fundraising event held each fall to find cures and provide access to treatments for blood cancer patients.
Coming together for a common goal, friends, family and co-workers form fundraising walk teams. Culminating in inspiration and memorable evening walks every fall, participants in communities across North America join together carrying illuminated lanterns to take steps to end cancer – white for survivors, red for supporters and gold in memory of loved ones lost to cancer. The Co-Corporate Walk Chairs will lead the effort in accelerating corporate and community engagement and driving revenue growth for Light The Night to support LLS’s ultimate goal of creating a world without blood cancers.
“We are so grateful to have the opportunity to work with business leaders and our communities to raise awareness and funds to fight blood cancers, said LLS’s Michigan Chapter Light The Night Co-Chair, Andy Gremel. “The strides and stewardship LLS is making to improve treatment options, support patients and their families, and drive research for curing blood cancers is phenomenal. Every three minutes someone is diagnosed with a blood cancer, and childhood leukemia is the leading type of cancer among children. Lymphoma struck our family in 2019, and fortunately my wife Meredith’s health is stable, enabling us to use this gift of time and the knowledge we gained through our journey to give back and help others.”
The Gremels are working with LLS leaders and inviting businesses to join them in expanding their impact, including hosting a number of new awareness and fundraising efforts in the months leading up to Light The Night. Through his independent insurance and employee benefits agency, The Gremel Group, Andy also is working diligently to connect employers with employees or dependents diagnosed with a blood cancer to LLS resources. LLS-Michigan has provided over $3.4M (in 2019) to Michigan residents to help pay for cancer treatments, travel and medications. LLS-Michigan also has awarded over $2.6M in research grant support to the Grand Rapids-based VanAndel Institute and The University of Michigan Medical Center.
This year, walks are tentatively scheduled in Detroit on September 29, 2022, and in Grand Rapids on October 8, 2022.
To form a team or to learn more, please call the Michigan chapter at 248-381-3884 or visit www.lightthenight.org