Student-led nonprofit aims to build community for people affected by cancer
Shreya Vemulapalli, a junior at The Harker School, founded nonprofit Cancel. Cancer. Culture. in 2023 to shed light on the stigma around cancer and foster open conversations.
Through CCC, Vemulapalli strives to challenge how cancer is viewed after she lost her father to cancer.
'Going through that secondhand experience and being exposed to cancer for a large percentage of my life, it really taught me how cancer is viewed in society,' Vemulapalli said.
One main topic Vemulapalli seeks to tackle is the limited narrative that often surrounds the disease.
'I think it's kind of a survivorship story where cancer is portrayed as this really huge battle,' Vemulapalli said.
While many people hear about cancer survivor stories, the reality for many people like her father, is that not everyone beats cancer.
'I think that's a great story to tell, but I think that it's not the complete one,' she said.
The stories of people who lost their lives to cancer deserve to be shared and can comfort others going through the same experience, Vemulapalli said. Having a community aids the journey through cancer.
A central focus of CCC is to cultivate this community and make it accessible for those experiencing cancer. Vemulapalli said the experience can be very isolating for patients and their loved ones.
'Finding a community and people who have also gone through it … can kind of shift your mindset,' Vemulapalli said.
Through CCC, Vemulapalli has received messages from individuals who have faced cancer either directly or from a secondhand perspective, further underscoring the widespread need for connection.
Taking the first step in founding CCC was the hardest for Vemulapalli, she said.
'Vocalizing that story was definitely the biggest step,' she said.
Reflecting on her hesitations, Vemulapalli recalled how she kept her story private, in fear that it made her different. However, she said she now recognizes the importance in sharing her experience and encourages others to do the same.
'Having those hard conversations can open the doors for so many other people,' Vemulapalli said.
Looking ahead, Vemulapalli envisions CCC expanding its impact through the release of an anthology, which will feature stories from cancer patients and survivors, offering diverse perspectives on the disease. CCC plans to host and attend both speaker and fundraising events to continue building its community and reach.
'We're still working on writing [the anthology] and publishing it, but that's one of the biggest projects that's hopefully going to come out soon,' Vemulapalli said.
Ultimately, through CCC, Vemulapalli works to redefine the way cancer is perceived. By pushing beyond the traditional narratives of survival, Vemulapalli hopes to open the door for more inclusive and compassionate conversations about the disease, its impact, and the people it touches.
Vemulapalli and CCC move to inspire people of all ages. As a teenager, Vemulapalli works to show that anyone can accomplish their ambitions if they have the will to do it.
While not everyone may be able to relate to CCC, Vemulapalli's mission and service is one that hopes to inspire people of all backgrounds, ages, and experiences. She works to demonstrate how one can overcome instead of being overcome in the face of grief and pain.
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Massachusetts lawmakers poised to approve major cannabis bill on Wednesday
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Opponents, including Equitable Opportunities Now and the Massachusetts Cannabis Equity Council, have warned that multistate operators are able to spend heavily to increase their market share and that allowing them to grow even more will hurt small and equity-owned businesses. 'This bill is a gift to corporate cannabis and a death sentence for local and social equity businesses. How is someone with one, two, or three stores supposed to compete with someone buying for six or more stores?' EON co-founder Shanel Lindsay said. 'It will undermine everything Massachusetts has worked so hard to achieve in building the most equitable cannabis industry in the country.' The bill also contemplates the possibility that Massachusetts might want to cap the total number of licenses granted by the CCC. It would require the CCC to conduct an economic analysis of the entire cannabis industry and gives the CCC the power to limit the total number of licenses issued based on that study. 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Asked about the Cannabis Policy Committee's bill last week, House Ways and Means Committee Chair Aaron Michlewitz said he was 'hopeful to do it soon' and that the House would 'make it a priority to kind of get through it as quickly as we can.' Top Senate Democrats haven't expressed the same sense of urgency on the CCC. 'I will talk to senators and the chair of the Cannabis Committee, and we'll see. We'll take a look at whatever the House sends over, of course,' Senate President Karen Spilka said Thursday. Download the FREE Boston 25 News app for breaking news alerts. Follow Boston 25 News on Facebook and Twitter. | Watch Boston 25 News NOW
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7 days ago
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House poised to approve major cannabis bill on Wednesday
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'This legislation not only makes needed changes to the structure of the Cannabis Control Commission, it's also representative of the House's commitment to ensuring that the cannabis industry in Massachusetts is regulated in a manner that bolsters economic opportunity, especially for communities that were disproportionately impacted by the criminalization of marijuana,' House Speaker Ronald Mariano said. 'I look forward to hearing more from my colleagues in the House about this issue, and to ultimately voting to pass these critical reforms tomorrow.' Created by the Legislature in 2017 after voters legalized non-medical marijuana in 2016, the CCC is a five-commissioner independent body, with appointments made singularly and jointly by the governor, attorney general and treasurer, with the treasurer selecting the chair. Under the bill the House will debate Wednesday, the CCC would be consolidated entirely under the governor. The state's executive would appoint all three commissioners and select one of them to serve as chair (who would be the only full-time commissioner). The CCC would be 'subject to the laws applicable to agencies under the control of the governor.' The chair would serve conterminously with the governor, according to the bill, and the other two commissioners would each serve terms of four years, or until a successor is appointed. The bill extends beyond cannabis products that are already under the CCC's purview to address intoxicating hemp-based products that largely fall into a gray area of the law and between the regulatory cracks. Since hemp-based gummies, energy shot-like drink bottles and seltzers became ubiquitous across Massachusetts convenience store checkout counters and social media feeds in recent years, lawmakers and regulators have flagged the need to straighten out what is and is not cannabis, and how it should all be regulated. The committee bill would ban the sale of hemp-based beverages and consumable CBD products unless the product is registered with the CCC and complies with regulations that the CCC would be required to promulgate to deal with things like product testing, labeling requirements and more. Those products would also be subject to a new tax (5.35% for CBD consumables and $4.05 per gallon for hemp-based drinks). The bill adjusts the existing cap on retail licenses any one operator can hold. The current limit is three, but some business owners have said the cap prevents them from selling their businesses. Under the bill advancing towards the House, the cap on retail licenses would be raised to six over a three-year period (increasing first to four, a year later to five and finally to six), and the existing three-license caps would remain in place for cultivation and manufacturing. Opponents, including Equitable Opportunities Now and the Massachusetts Cannabis Equity Council, have warned that multistate operators are able to spend heavily to increase their market share and that allowing them to grow even more will hurt small and equity-owned businesses. 'This bill is a gift to corporate cannabis and a death sentence for local and social equity businesses. How is someone with one, two, or three stores supposed to compete with someone buying for six or more stores?' EON co-founder Shanel Lindsay said. 'It will undermine everything Massachusetts has worked so hard to achieve in building the most equitable cannabis industry in the country.' The bill also contemplates the possibility that Massachusetts might want to cap the total number of licenses granted by the CCC. It would require the CCC to conduct an economic analysis of the entire cannabis industry and gives the CCC the power to limit the total number of licenses issued based on that study. EON pointed to a number of the bill's provisions that it views as positive steps for the industry, including medical vertical deintegration and increasing the daily purchase limit to two ounces, but the group said it would prefer no legislative action to 'a flawed bill that gives control of the market and policymaking to the largest, most profitable businesses.' 'We appreciate action on medical deintegration, enforcing ownership limits, and other overdue reforms — but handing more power to big cannabis and gutting the CCC's independence are poison pills,' EON Deputy Director Kevin Gilnack said. 'Most cannabis businesses would be better off if the Legislature did nothing.' On the medical side of the legal marijuana world, the bill eliminates the requirement that medical marijuana businesses be 'vertically integrated,' meaning they must grow and process all the marijuana they sell. Patients and advocates have been calling for that change for years, saying the medical-only options have become scarce across Massachusetts since cannabis was legalized for non-medical use. It includes language that would let the CCC 'establish and provide for issuance of additional types or classes of licenses to operate medical use of marijuana-related businesses' and would change the standard terminology in state law from 'medical marijuana treatment center' to 'medical marijuana establishment.' Medical marijuana retail licenses would be available exclusively to social equity applicants for at least the first three years they are available. The House Ways and Means Committee advanced the bill with 23 Democrats in support, no committee members opposed, eight Republicans electing to essentially abstain from the committee vote, and five Boston Democrats taking no action on the committee poll. Asked about the Cannabis Policy Committee's bill last week, House Ways and Means Committee Chair Aaron Michlewitz said he was 'hopeful to do it soon' and that the House would 'make it a priority to kind of get through it as quickly as we can.' Top Senate Democrats haven't expressed the same sense of urgency on the CCC. 'I will talk to senators and the chair of the Cannabis Committee, and we'll see. We'll take a look at whatever the House sends over, of course,' Senate President Karen Spilka said Thursday. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
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The heat pump planning permission rule change that could affect millions, explained
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In the plans, it said 14% of emissions reductions by 2040 could be achieved through residential buildings - thanks to new and replacement homes using low carbon heating installations - mainly heat pumps. Heat pumps have also been touted as potentially saving cash for households, many of whom are facing prohibitively expensive energy bills. Max Schwerdtfeger, from The Eco Experts, said the move could be "vital" to meeting government targets on heat pumps. He told Yahoo News UK: "Removing the 1 metre rule is a brilliant and critical step from the government, and if it does reach its target of installing 600,000 heat pumps a year by 2028, we could look back and view it as a vital move. "It means it is less likely that planning applications will be rejected and fewer consumers will drop out of the process of having one installed. "Removing as many barriers to heat pump installation as possible is of the utmost importance because the window of opportunity for getting them installed is usually much smaller than other clean tech. Why? Because people tend to consider heat pumps when either their gas boiler has broken down or it is just nearing the end of its lifecycle. "Either way, if someone needs a heat pump, they need it installed as quickly as possible, and taking any potential friction makes it much more likely they will do so. If they don't, that is a customer the industry has missed out on for a potential decade, or until they need another upgrade. "Every opportunity to get people to upgrade to a heat pump must be taken. Figures suggest that as many as 34% are put off from installing a heat pump because of planning rules. This stat is far too high, and the government should be credited for trying to bring it down. "It should seize this opportunity to expand the Boiler Upgrade Scheme further and facilitate financing options for consumers to install heat pumps." The planning permission change comes after the government announced steps to encourage households to take up measures that would deliver 'cleaner' heating in November last year. The steps - part of the ongoing rollout of the Warm Homes Plan - included the removal of the '1m rule', that meant households wanting to install an air source heat pump within a metre of a neighbour's property would need to submit a planning application. The rule was blamed for a slow take-up of the technology, with Octopus Energy telling the Energy Security and Net Zero (ESNZ) Committee in 2023 that the rule was instrumental in putting people off having a heat pump, saying 27% of customers its customers had been requested to obtain planning permission. It said many customers had decided against heat pumps when they become aware of the planning permission requirements and those who had tried to proceed ended up waiting an extra eight to 10 weeks on average, adding: "The combined impact of all these things mean that very few of the 27% of customers who require planning have made it to install." Announcing its changes in November, the government said it would be: "allowing more households in England to install an air source heat pump without the need to submit a planning application from early next year, by removing the rule requiring them to be installed at least one metre from a property's boundary. This will provide greater flexibility, with rules still in place around listed buildings." The take-up of heat pumps may be slower than targets, but is rising. As of 2023, the total number of certified heat pumps installed across the UK surpassed 200,000, according to figures from the MCS Foundation, the UK's main certification scheme. It said 2023 saw a nearly 20% jump in certified heat pump installations compared to the previous year. Earlier this year, data suggested the UK had seen its busiest ever start to the year for low-carbon heat pump installations, up by one quarter on the previous year. Data suggested that through January, 4,743 of the devices were installed under the MCS, which accounts for the vast majority of heat pumps across the country. Meanwhile, 21% of the UK's new home market had a heat pump installed that month, up from 11% in January 2024, according to energy performance certificate (EPC) data. And in April, government figures said heat pumps were continuing to grow in popularity with a record 4,028 applications received in March – up 88% on the same month last year. A government document published in March 2024, called: 'Heat pumps explained: experts answer your questions', said homeowners could expect to pay £6,500 to £11,500 for a heat pump. Within the document, Joanna O'Loan, Knowledge Manager at Energy Saving Trust, said: "Some installers are now offering highly competitive installation costs, so it's worth exploring your options. We'd recommend getting at least 3 installers to quote, so that you can compare costs and design." The Boiler Upgrade Scheme is a grant system that helps with the cost of the installation of a heat pump. In recent weeks, the government announced a consultation that could see the scheme expanded to include more heat pump alternatives and third-party ownership models. However, figures suggest that the real term average cost of heat pump installations is around the top end of the range quotes in the government document. The argument for heat pumps is that they will save households money, with the government 'experts' document suggesting they could save a typical home £234 a year. In the document, Jo Alsop, co-founder at Warmur, said: "Based on current energy prices, heat pumps can save a typical gas household around £234 per year when they opt for smart electricity tariffs and remove the gas meter. Actual savings can vary depending on how efficiently the heat pump operates. "Modern, well optimised heat pumps perform well at higher temperatures, but households may wish to consider cost effective insulation and some radiator swaps to reduce running costs further."
