Weber’s Smith Headlines LLS Society Event
The Weber School junior, Jillian Smith, spoke at the 2025 Student Visionaries of the Year grand finale.
With an audience of more than 500 attendees at the Coca-Cola Roxy, Jillian Smith, a junior at The Weber School, was hand-picked out of hundreds of high school students across the state of Georgia, to be the headliner at the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society of Georgia (LLS) 2025 Student Visionaries of the Year (SVOY) grand finale event.
SVOY is a groundbreaking philanthropic leadership development program for high school students. Every year, courageous young leaders embark on an exciting, seven-week journey with a goal to create a world without blood cancers, striving to earn the Student Visionary of the Year title.
At the start of her speech, Smith said, “When I was preparing for my bat mitzvah to become a Jewish adult, one of my responsibilities was to choose a community project. I chose to participate in a 5K race to raise money for children with cancer. During the race, I could see them from their hospital windows cheering for me, shouting ‘you can do it!’ Smith continued, “I was so inspired and knew that helping others didn’t have to stop at my mitzvah project.”
Now as a high school student, Smith aims to encourage her peers in the Jewish community to leverage what they learned from their mitzvah project and become an even more powerful force to represent the Jewish people.
At the start of the fall 2024 school year, Jillian oversaw and mentored a team of 18 peers led by Weber School classmates, junior Daryn Mand and sophomore Jagger Kaye.
“In 2024, the Weber Rams Against Cancer team raised an astonishing $82,000, over-exceeding their goal, and this year, we were determined to raise even more in honor of our middle school Davis Academy teacher, Ms. Kendrick, who was diagnosed with Chronic Myeloid Leukemia,” said Mand.
“Honoring our teacher from The Davis Academy was what inspired us to raise $125,000 for blood cancers, exceeding our original goal of $75,000. We led presentations over Zoom with local businesses, reached out to friends and family and held an event at Cafe I Am to surpass our goal,” said Kaye.
The owner of Cafe I Am, a local cafe in Sandy Springs, is not just a Weber parent of student Rafael Saitowitz, but also a big believer in helping others.
“This is the second year our son asked us if he could host an event at the cafe where all proceeds would be donated to LLS,” said cafe owner Vanda Saitowitz. “We were so honored he even thought of us for this opportunity, and loved seeing his classmates talk about the program to the community right here at the cafe.”
I was so inspired and knew that helping others didn’t have to stop at my mitzvah project.
At Weber, students are taught not only to strive for academic excellence and show a commitment to Jewish values, the Jewish people and Israel, but also to serve the community and improve the world.
Reid Smith, campaign development manager with The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society of Georgia/South Carolina Region said, “I continue to be amazed how the students from The Weber School evolve into leaders like Romy (Ress), Leah May (Kogon) — 2023 candidates, Jillian (Smith) Marion (Kogon) — 2024 candidates, Daryn (Mand) and Jagger (Kaye) — 2025 candidates. They all support one another through public speaking, team meetings, letter writing and so much more and it’s very impressive. You can really see the passion behind these students and their ‘why’s’ for being involved with the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society. As well as the support from the community and how everyone pours into these students that are leading their campaign. It has been a wonderful thing to witness, and I am honored to have worked closely with The Weber School and the families!”
The SVOY program is comprised of 36 teams in Atlanta, and more than 1,100 teams across the country. For the last three years, The Weber School’s dedicated club for the SVOY program has collectively raised nearly $300,000 for the fight against blood cancers.
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