Teen turns school gold for childhood cancer awareness

SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (KELO) – September marks pediatric cancer awareness month and one high school student at Harrisburg is making a big impact with his senior project.

The Ahrendt family knows what it feels like to lose a family member to childhood cancer.Lincoln Ahrendt’s cousin Landon Ahrendt died from soft tissue cancer at 10 years old.

“His wish was for our family to continue helping families fight the disease. And I chose this project because of that, to create some awareness and get some money toward research,” Lincoln Ahrendt, a senior at Harrisburg High School said.

Since May, Lincoln has been planning this project by designing and selling gold T-shirts for people to wear at his high school’s football game.

“I want something that was kind of catchy on the front, which is why I put the hashtag. And then the front I wanted something that had a really good meaning to it that people couldn’t forget,” Lincoln said.

The Ahrendt family is no stranger to giving back. Since Landon passed in 2014, Lincoln’s parents, Heather and Jason Ahrendt, have been involved in the Foundation Board at Sanford Health.

“As a dad that’s been pretty involved in fundraising for pediatric cancer, it really brings a lot of pride to see a 17-year-old take on a project like this for his senior high school project is pretty cool,” Jason said.

In total over 600 gold shirts were created and nearly $6,000 will be donated toward research at Sanford Health.

“It’s a big deal. 100% of the funds raised through this will stay local. Sanford Health and Sanford Research. That’s a big thing and that could only be done through Lincoln beating the streets and getting sponsors to help out with this,” Jason said.

The vice president of The Foundation at Sanford Health, Erin Sanderson, says Lincoln’s donation will help families in Sioux Falls.

“Every single year we see more than 30 kids that are diagnosed here locally with a form of pediatric cancer. So, unfortunately, that number continues to grow. So we just want to make sure that through philanthropy, we’re helping these families in any way that we can,” Sanderson said.Sanderson says she’s happy to see fundraiser projects like these again since she noticed a decrease during and after COVID-19.

“I just think it’s so refreshing. This is one of the first gold games I’ve heard of in a really long time, and we used to have quite a bit where we would have students come forward and want to raise awareness and money for pediatric cancer,” Sanderson said. “So to see this come back, it was kind of just a breath of fresh air to know that we’re talking about this again.”

Just one way he’s keeping Landon’s memory alive, and raising awareness.

“I just want to spread the message that pediatric cancer is a real thing. Some people don’t really think about it that much, but I want to show that it’s more prevalent than we think,” Lincoln said.

In honor of childhood cancer awareness month, Sanford Health will be hosting a Cure Kids Cancer Radiothon.