Hi! My name is Samantha Wildeboer. When I was younger I was pretty athletic, and very involved. I played soccer, softball, speed skated, I participated in the local theatre, and I volunteered at a nursing home for people with ahlzheimers. My life came to a screeching halt one hot summer day; it was June 16, 2008. While my friends were outside playing in the hot summer sun, I was in the hospital getting diagnosed with leukemia. The hardest thing was knowing that my life would change forever and I would no longer be able to do the things that I love. Little did I know, it also kept me from doing things I didn’t really love, like school! I could not attend most of my classes and I was homebound most of my high school years. Despite the fact I was rarely ever able to attend school, I was able to maintain some really great friendships and make new ones in the cancer world. It was really important to me to graduate with my friends so I worked as hard as I could and succeeded in graduating on time! Nowadays, I still continue to get sick, which I thought would not hold me back from continuing on to college, but unfortunately it did. I went to my first semester at Cornell College and made fantastic friends, but I could not continue. This semester I am hoping to get a part time job, and maybe go back to a local community college in the fall. Thank you for supporting me and the more than 300,000 kids worldwide who will be diagnosed with cancer this year. By sharing the gifts of your time, talent and money with the St. Baldrick’s Foundation, you're supporting research to give all kids with cancer a better chance for a cure.

UPDATE: Sadly, Samantha passed away 10/23/2022 due to continued complications from the chemotherapy treatment she had endured.