More Than a Letter

Meet Daily Point of Light Award honoree Ananya Nagendra. Read her story, and nominate an outstanding volunteer or family as a Daily Point of Light.

Empathy and compassion are at the forefront of everything 18-year-old Ananya Nagendra does. She adopted her guinea pigs from the Texas Rustlers Small Animal Rescue, where she has volunteered for nearly seven years after learning they were often abandoned, surrendered or from neglected homes.

Ananya’s main focus is Letters of Light, the 401(c)3 she founded to bridge the gap between mental and physical healthcare for cancer patients. The original initiative involved sending encouraging letters and care packages to patients through partner oncology centers. Over 10,800 people have been on the receiving end of such uplifting expressions of solidarity.

As a Riley’s Way Call for Kindness Fellow, she’s been given a grant to establish “Books of Light,” a program that creates library systems at underfunded oncology centers so those in treatment can distract themselves with a related resource book or a personally requested one.

Ananya has also developed preventative healthcare workshops across the state that serve around 500 high school students each year, and she connects patients to support groups and guidance via the social workers who work with her organization. But she doesn’t do it alone. 1,200 student volunteers from 57 schools across the country assist at events, as long-term administrative help and through writing handwritten letters.

Ananya is looking forward to exploring the intersection between environmental science and public health in her collegiate studies where she will, of course, continue to lead with compassion.

What inspires you to volunteer?

My introduction to volunteering was at the animal rescue and my local temple. I didn’t really know what volunteering meant; I just knew I wanted to help out and found it exciting that, at the rescue, I could help these animals that I’d loved for so long.

What I really enjoyed about volunteering at my temple was getting to meet people in my community. Through that, I realized that I could teach younger people who might not know as much about Indian culture and want to learn more.

These experiences helped me understand what community support is and how it can look different in different communities. I learned the same skills at both places–to work in a team, to support others and to contribute to a bigger cause.

What inspired you to get started with this initiative?

I lost my mom to metastatic breast cancer when I was 15. At that time, I didn’t know what cancer entailed or what treatment would look like, but soon after, I started spending my holidays, weekends and time after school at her chemotherapy sessions. I’d sit in the lobby because I was too young to enter the chemotherapy ward, and I constantly saw people going in alone. My mom also saw many people without any support when they were struggling to even walk into their sessions. Cancer is as much a mental battle as a physical one, and through my mom’s experiences, I learned more about how it takes both kinds of strength to get through treatment.

I looked for ways someone my age could support patients in treatment but found few options with established nonprofits. Many times, opportunities include driving them, cooking or doing different physical support things. Rarely did options involve mental health support. That made me realize that letters would be a great way to connect with people and brighten their day.

Tell us about your volunteer role with Letters of Light Foundation.

When I first started, it was finding grants and funding sources, forming a team, setting up a board, setting up letter auditing guidelines and standards, etc.

High schoolers don’t really get preventative health care or cancer awareness education. That scared me, because one in four people go undiagnosed with cancer. So, I also created online and in-person preventive healthcare workshops with interactive activities like quizzes. We hand out pamphlets and talk about different forms of screenings, as well.

The team I manage has grown from two to 16 people, which has allowed me to take on more creative tasks—deciding how to expand, what to change, how to better target certain groups. I do a lot of outreach, networking, answering requests and planning out partnerships.

What are your long-term plans or goals for the organization?

I want to do more policy work to subsidize screenings and offer college-level preventative healthcare or cancer education classes to students. Quite a few people under the age of 25 are diagnosed with cervical cancer.

What’s been the most rewarding part of your work?

I love seeing patient’s reactions when they open their letters. People tell me they’re not only joyful to receive them, but they feel that someone else is there for them. The head of nursing from one of our partner oncology centers told us that many of the patients bring their letters to each treatment session as a talisman and find new strength.

That’s exactly the response we hope to hear. We just want to let them know that they’re stronger than they think they are and can get through this.

What have you learned through your experiences as a volunteer?

Many of our youngest volunteers are 4 or 5 years old. They don’t know what cancer is or how brutal treatment is. What they do understand is that they have a bunch of love to give, and they can make people happy through these letters. That makes them happy.

For many people, we’re their introduction to what community support looks like. We can’t introduce our youngest volunteers to cancer yet, but we can teach them compassion.

What do you want people to learn from your story?

You’re never too young to do something like this. You’re capable of leading a change in any field you’re passionate about.
When I lost my mom, I thought that I would never be happy with my life again. But you can find things that not only make you feel connected with someone you’ve lost, but that make you feel content. As time passes, you truly get better. You’re stronger than you know.

Do you want to make a difference in your community like Ananya? Find local volunteer opportunities.