12/29/2025
One of the memories our family holds close from the year that Sophie spent in and out of the hospital at UNC is the image of her dancing in a light-filled hallway when a lovely nurse arranged for her to leave the bone marrow unit for a few hours to find her joy.
Dance is not everyone’s joy, but all young adults have something that brings them happiness—that allows them to express their own uniqueness in the world. Even in a big hospital system, there are ways to make sure that young adults facing a cancer diagnosis maintain their sense of identity, dignity, and independence. From the beginning, this has been the focus of the Be Loud! Sophie Foundation—to partner with UNC to help young adults with cancer feel their essential humanness.
With support from people like you, our partnership with UNC led to the creation of the Adolescent and Young Adult (AYA) Cancer Program in 2015. We started the program by funding one position, and in the years since it has grown to include 11 extraordinary team members. What we learned early on was that the best way to help AYAs feel their essential humanness is to invest in caregivers who want to build authentic connections with the 13- to 39-year-olds they serve.
We are therefore so grateful that each member of the UNC AYA team has this ability—they are collaborative, curious, brilliant, and dedicated, whether it is Andrew “Smitty” Smitherman explaining clinical trials options, Jordan Lodato Hunt offering advice on fertility preservation, Aspen Yordy connecting young adults with resources, Ali Manikowski listening to and validating patients’ fears at their bedside, Catherine Habashy navigating difficult conversations around palliative care, or Melissa Matson helping AYAs rediscover their full selves after cancer treatment through the AYA Survivorship Clinic.
Crystal Plummer has a unique understanding of how important it is for caregivers to recognize the complexity of each patient’s unique experience. A survivor of childhood leukemia, Crystal is now an oncology nurse at UNC and a patient in the AYA Survivorship Clinic. “What stands out about the survivorship clinic is how attuned each caregiver is to all the things that we might be balancing: jobs, school, work, relationships, and kids, as well as the fear we live with that our cancer might come back.”
Having accomplished so much at UNC, this wonderful AYA team is now poised to expand its impact across North Carolina. Thanks to a thoughtful and generous donor, the team, led by Emily Haines and Jake Stein, has recently launched the Hub and Spokes project. Through this project, UNC is partnering with caregivers in rural areas to improve their ability to provide tailored care to young adults with cancer. Team members have already begun building relationships with oncologists at the McCreary Cancer Center in Lenoir and the Blue Ridge Cancer Center in Valdese, with plans to expand to all 12 UNC-affiliated hospitals across the state.
In October, we had the chance to attend the North Carolina AYA Oncology Symposium hosted by the UNC AYA team to learn more about the Hub and Spokes project. What struck us as we listened to a panel of oncologists from rural hospitals talking about their needs was the strength of the relationships they are building with caregivers across the state and their eagerness to collaborate. Currently, UNC treats about 500 AYA patients each year; by implementing the Hub and Spokes model, the team expects to double its impact within a few years. Crucial to the success of this expansion will be figuring out how to encourage oncologists to recognize the essential humanness of the young adults in their care.
As our family celebrates the holidays, we are deeply grateful to supporters like you who help young adult cancer patients maintain their identity, dignity, and independence. To help us keep this momentum going, please consider making a tax-deductible donation. 100% of your donation directly supports our work, because our foundation has no paid staff and is driven only by volunteers. You can donate by mailing a check to: The Be Loud! Sophie Foundation, 406 Longleaf Drive, Chapel Hill NC 27517, or through our website: beloudspohie.org. And while there, please enjoy a short video about our work at beloudsophie.org/video
Thank you for helping us live by the words from one of Sophie’s poems:
“Be loud and move with grace. Explode with light. Have no fear.”
With much gratitude,
Lucy, Niklaus, Elsa, and Annabel
