Blood Cancer United (formerly LLS): history and new name

This page is for patients and families who have seen the names LLS or Blood Cancer United and want to know who is behind them. It covers the group's history, its name changes, and what it can and cannot do for you.

This group's story does not start with a meeting or a mission statement. It starts with grief. Rudolph and Antoinette de Villiers lost their 16-year-old son, Robert "Robbie" Roesler de Villiers, to leukemia in 1944.

Five years later, in 1949, they started the Robert Roesler de Villiers Foundation in his memory. It began in a small Wall Street office. Staff and budget were both small. At the time, a leukemia diagnosis in a child was close to a certain death sentence. No large national group focused only on it.

That small office is the direct ancestor of the group patients meet today, even though its size and its name have changed again and again.

Few cancer nonprofits have changed names this many times. The group became The Leukemia Society in the 1950s. It became The Leukemia Society of America in the 1960s. In 2000, it became The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society, adding lymphoma to its focus.

Then, in 2025, it changed again. The new name is Blood Cancer United. This name points to blood cancers more broadly, not just two diseases.

Here is the key point for patients: these are not different organizations. It is the same nonprofit, carrying its original mission forward under a new name each time its work grew. If you see "LLS" or "The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society" in an old flyer or a friend's memory of a past fundraiser, that is this same group.

Its stated mission is short: cure blood cancer, and improve life for patients and families. These details are the organization's own statements. They were not confirmed in a government or NCI source, so this page does not repeat its research-funding figures or long-term targets.

The group is closely tied to several long-running fundraising events. Light The Night is a community walk built around glowing lanterns, held in cities nationwide. Team In Training pairs fundraising with training for events like marathons, bike rides, and hikes.

Other named events include America's Most Beautiful Bike Ride, the Big Climb, Climb 2 Cure, and the Firefighter Stairclimb. It also runs recognition programs called Visionaries of the Year and Student Visionaries of the Year, built around local fundraising campaigns.

It can point to research behind treatments already in use. It can run or support patient and family programs. It can connect people to a community of others facing leukemia, lymphoma, myeloma, and related blood cancers, through its events and local chapters. Because it has focused on blood cancers for decades, its programs are often more specialized than a general cancer charity's.

It is not a hospital or a clinic. It does not manage anyone's individual care; that stays with a patient's own oncology team. Funding a lot of research does not mean it can predict or guarantee one person's outcome.

Any patient assistance programs it runs depend on limited funds and rules that can change. Always confirm current details directly with the organization, not from an old page or an old memory.

This group began as one family's memorial foundation in 1949. It has changed its public name at least four times as its work grew. That history explains its scale today, and why its branding can look inconsistent across old and new material.

For a patient or caregiver, the takeaway is simple. Whatever name you find it under, it is the same nonprofit with decades of focus on blood cancer. Its current programs and contact details are best confirmed on its present-day site, not an old printed page.