An Ellijay native who’s a cancer survivor is using her faith and life experiences to help young people battling the disease.
Sadie Lackey, a 2016 Gilmer High School graduate, launched a foundation in January for that purpose.
The 118 Foundation was designed to help young people age 18-39 by providing financial assistance grants and other resources aimed at “helping restore their confidence in living a full, abundant life.”
Lackey, who now lives in Virginia and works in Washington, D.C., was diagnosed with Hodgkin’s lymphoma in 2022. She was 25 at the time and had moved just two years earlier after graduating from the University of Georgia.
“There are no words to describe the confusion, loneliness, anxiety and fear I felt. Cancer completely unrooted me,” Lackey said. “It really rocked my world, and being fresh out of college, I didn’t really have a whole lot of life collateral, as I would call it, to face something like this head-on. As I went through treatment, I discovered that there are a lot of young people like me in the same situation.”
Lackey said there are many different organizations dedicated to helping those with cancer, but the 118 Foundation is unique in that it’s geared toward the adolescent and young adult (AYA) community, the same age group Lackey was in when diagnosed.
“The AYA cancer community is underserved and often riddled with debt. You’re finishing up college or going to grad school, or you’ve just started your career, and you get hit with something as devastating and life altering as cancer,” she said. “You surely don’t have a lot of money at that stage in your life, and you probably don’t have the stability to overcome cancer,” she said.
“The AYA community is often overlooked and misunderstood because of the uniqueness of their diagnosis and the consequences that follow. Thirty-nine is not considered a young adult in a lot of circumstances, but it is in the cancer community because it’s still odd for someone in their 30s to have cancer. In fact, the National Cancer Institute estimated that only 4.4 percent of all new cases of cancer in 2023 would occur in ages 15-39.”
Lackey said she was fortunate to have people in D.C. and Gilmer County rally around her and offer support during that difficult time. The foundation is a way of offering some needed support to others, she noted.
“A lot of the support and love I felt came from Gilmer County. Even though I stayed in D.C. to finish out my treatments, I had folks in Gilmer County ringing my phone off the hook, supporting this foundation getting off the ground and checking on my family,” she said. “I was blessed with that, and my heart broke for people who didn’t have that.”
Lackey was still undergoing treatments, including chemotherapy, when the idea for starting a nonprofit guided by the principles of humility, hope and complete healing came to her during a church conference.
“Each of these concepts was personified by Jesus as he walked the Earth. Faith was very important to me throughout the healing process, and my church was a place I could just go and be myself and not have to worry,” she said. “I was at this conference at my church, and it was there I feel like God put it on my heart to start this foundation. During one of the sessions, I had a notebook with me and wrote everything out. I had a plan sitting right there. I prayed through it and thought through it carefully, and we moved forward with the idea as I finished up treatment and once I got out of it.”
The name of the 501(c)(3) is a reference to Psalm 118-24, a verse that has particular significance to Lackey.
“It says, ‘This is the day the Lord has made. I will rejoice and be glad in it.’ It’s a verse I said almost every day when I was sick, sometime through gritted teeth and tears,” she said. “It was something that carried me through my treatment, and it’s also reflective of the principles of our foundation.”
The financial assistance grants the foundation distributes are made possible by donations from various churches, organizations and individuals. The first grant was awarded to a Texas woman battling brain cancer, Lackey noted. Future grants will be awarded on a quarterly basis.
“We provide these grants to 18-39 year olds who are currently cancer patients or are a maximum three years out of treatment. We call them restoration grants,” Lackey said. “The idea is that the grant will be used in a way that helps the person relieve some of the burden from being in treatment and having cancer or find some restoration in the healing process. The money can be used for anything outside of things like luxury purchases. We do have some restrictions there. It can be used for paying a nanny or babysitter while you’re recovering or going to treatment. It can be used to pay your bills or buy supplies while you’re going to school or even to go on a getaway and take your mind off of things.”
Lackey, who attended Abraham Baldwin Agricultural College before UGA, was active in Gilmer County FFA from 6th-12th grade and was later a state FFA officer. Since moving to D.C., she’s worked in the U.S. Senate and House. She currently works in government affairs for the National Corn Growers Association.
“FFA really changed the trajectory of my life. At a young age, I realized I loved agriculture and investing and being active in rural communities,” she said.
As the still-young 118 Foundation gains its footing, Lackey hopes to eventually expand the assistance it can offer.
“We’re working to tailor our resources to what will best support and help young adults with cancer. One way we’d like to do that is with a treatment day bag program, where we will fill a bag with items to help people on the days they go to treatment or the following days when they’re recovering. A lot of these items are incredibly simple — like hand sanitizer, gum to help with nausea, an icepack, a water bottle — but people just don’t know how necessary they are,” she said. “There’s not a class in high school about how to defeat cancer, so this program is more educational than anything. It won’t cost much to put these bags out there, and it will help patients get a leg up and be more comfortable during treatment.”
Lackey was declared cancer free earlier this year, but she still must have regular checkups and will need to see an oncologist annually from here on out.
“Thankfully, with Hodgkin’s lymphoma, there’s a very high success rate now, but it’s a very intensive process. That wasn’t always the case, even 10 or 20 years back, so I feel extremely blessed with the advancements in medicine and to have God’s healing. I really don’t think that (recovery) would’ve happened without my faith and community,” she said.