BELTON, Texas — A Belton student is receiving national attention after it was announced that she won the "Cancer Unwrapped Teen Writing Contest".
Each year, Cancer Pathways hosts a contest to give teenagers a chance to share how the disease has impacted their lives.
Lauren Hale was one of the 1,112 people who submitted to the contest. She wrote a piece called The Glass Swan, where she detailed the loss of her grandmother to cancer.
There were 20 winners across the country, each awarded a $1,000 prize. This was the 17th year for the competition, which organizers say has been growing rapidly each year.
"It's just a chance to give kids a voice to articulate their feelings — to describe how they've experienced cancer, whether that's their own personal cancer or that of a loved one," Program Manager Paige Hansen-Shankar told 25 News.
Hansen-Shankar said reading through submissions gives them a chance to feel they're not alone in their experiences with cancer. Each year they ask participants how the process was, and she says many call it very healing.
"We get things back like 'I buried some of these feelings', 'It made me feel less alone because they know there's others'," Hansen-Shankar said.
"Especially when they come to our video reception, because they know there's others who go through this same experience."
