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Young Alumni Award Presented to Alison Lambert Voron '96 April 29, 2016

In 1994, Ali Lambert was a healthy, active Shipley sophomore, playing lacrosse, field hockey, and volleyball. Then she was diagnosed with alopecia universalis. It’s an autoimmune disorder that causes total hair loss, a disease that can crush self-esteem and self-worth. A year later, Ali Lambert ran for and was elected President of the School, and she expressed an ambition to be the “first bald Baywatch Babe.” Later in life, she suffered from colitis, another autoimmune disease. Hers is the story of someone who overcomes adversity, again and again.

 Ali Lambert, now Ali Lambert Voron, is a voiceover actress. But her real mission is to help others overcome adversity. Along with her husband Mike, she founded BeYouLoveLife.com. Its purpose, she says, is to “inspire people of all ages to love and accept themselves just as they are… We celebrate the fact that every person is special in his or her own unique way,” she says. Last week, beYouLoveLife launched a new inspirational social media platform, bYLLboard.

 Mrs. Voron has blogged for the Huffington Post and Everyday Health. She gives motivational speeches to audiences of adults and children about surmounting obstacles. Her public service announcement, promoting new definitions of inner and outer beauty, went viral. Her Ali Bratz Project is a non-profit that provides bald dolls to children who have alopecia or who have lost their hair from chemotherapy.

 It is for her commitment to helping others to see and to celebrate their own self-worth, regardless of outward appearance, that we recognize Ali Lambert Voron with the Young Alumni Award.

Acceptance Speech:

It is such an honor to be here and I’m beyond humbled that I was chosen for this prestigious award! Thank you so much to Dr. Piltch and the Alumni Association – I can’t tell you how much this means to me. Truly, from the bottom of my heart, thank you.
 
 I also want to thank my family for being here: my parents, Diane & Ross. My younger sisters, Erica & Jill, who both went to Shipley, Erica’s husband Josh and their kids, Cori and Luke – and of course, my husband Mike, and our two kids, Joey and Rider – thank you all so much for being here.

 It’s so surreal being up here speaking to you guys – because exactly 20 years ago, almost to the day, I was standing in front of the entire upper school running my last Monday morning assembly as the All-School President.

 Being the All-School President was a very humbling experience for me, and to this day, I still think about it and talk about it, on a weekly, if not daily basis. Now maybe you’re thinking, “Ok, what’s wrong with this girl? 20 years later she’s still talking about being president?”
 
 Well, when it’s something that actually formed who you are, and how you went on to live the rest of your life, being All-School President stays with you. Twenty-one years ago I was a junior at Shipley – and out of nowhere my hair started falling out. My once, long, thick blonde hair was suddenly thin and my head was covered in bald spots.
 
 It turned out I had alopecia areata, an autoimmune disease that meant that I would lose some or all of my hair. It wasn’t an easy year – I was in and out of doctor’s offices, I experimented with different treatments, I had to get permission from Shipley to wear a baseball hat to school, eventually when my hair was so thin I tried wearing a wig – all of this was definitely tough.
 
 But lucky for me – I have two amazingly supportive parents, two incredibly positive sisters that stuck by me through all of it, and I had the most invested, supportive community of friends, teachers, and administration at Shipley, who truly lifted me up, and carried me from September through June as I went from having a full head of hair, to being fully bald.

 That spring, when everyone started focusing on the school elections, I got a message that Dr. Piltch wanted to speak with me. We met in his office and had a long discussion about what the year had been like for me and how I had gotten through it. I explained to him that from the very beginning, when I first found out I was going to lose my hair, my parents sat me down and we discussed my options.

 They helped me understand that I had a choice in how I would respond to this unexpected diagnosis. I could be sad, throw myself a pity party and dwell on the fact that sometimes life isn’t fair – or I could be sad for a second, accept the fact that it was out of my control and there was nothing I could do to stop it, and move on with my life.

 The truth was, I wasn’t sick. I wasn’t in pain. My life wasn’t going to change in any major way. I was going to lose my hair, and I would look different. But that’s about it. I felt a huge sense of pride when I realized that I could handle it - and that I would be ok.

 I explained all of this to Dr. Piltch, and I remember him telling me how proud he was of my attitude and how I had faced it all. On my way out the door, he also suggested that I think about running for All-School President. And just a few weeks later, I found myself winning the election. So why do I still think about this, and talk about this, oh so often???

 Well, after Shipley I went to Penn and then moved to New York City. I faced a lot of “new people” and “new situations.” In fact riding the New York City subway to work every day meant that I was crossing paths with thousands of complete strangers every single day.

 Very often people took double takes when they saw me. People stared. Kids pointed and asked their parents why I was bald. Sometimes it hurt a little… but through it all, I always looked back at my senior year at Shipley – how I stood in front of the entire upper school every Monday morning… bald. How I spoke at all school assemblies, alumni weekend, and when prospective families visited the school. I always looked back on the confidence I developed by being awarded such a great responsibility, and how I was accepted for who I was, no matter what I looked like.

 In 2005 I met my husband, Mike, at a music festival in New Orleans. We fell in love on the spot, and when I found out that he had grown up with a brother who had developmental disabilities, but he kept a positive attitude through all of the adversity he and his family had faced, we connected instantly over our values, beliefs and life experiences.

 In 2007 Mike and I got married and just four months later, I was diagnosed with another autoimmune disease called ulcerative colitis. I’ll spare you the details, but it was a very rough four years as I battled the disease – I actually almost died – and finally in 2011, I had my colon removed, and that essentially cured me. Just 10 days after my surgery, Mike’s mom passed away from brain cancer.

 Mike and I weathered a storm of great magnitude together for those four years. But through it all, I always looked back on my time here at Shipley, and I believe I channeled the support I received, and the confidence I gained, during my junior and senior years at the school.

 Looking back, I feel like having alopecia, and being at Shipley, made me who I am today. Alopecia doesn’t define me, but it certainly played a big role in how I see life, and life’s challenges. It helped me find my husband and it helps me raise my kids by instilling the values in them that I learned during my time at Shipley when I lost my hair.

 Before I close, I think I should mention something pretty huge. Just two weeks ago, Mike and I launched our new business, beYouLoveLife, and we debuted our brand new social media platform, bYLLboard, to the world. beYouLoveLife is a for profit social impact organization with a mission to inspire people to love and accept themselves just as they are. bYLLboard, is an online social community where people can find inspiration and provide inspiration for others.
 
 Right now we are flooding the site with inspirational content, and if you have any stories of adversity and triumph that you’d like to share with us, we would love to hear from you and would love for the Shipley community to play a big role in our launch. So if you want to see more about byllboard and know more about what we’re doing – go to beyoulovelife.com.

 In closing, I want to thank you all for sharing these few minutes with me as I stand up here speaking to the Shipley Upper School one last time. It’s something that has played such a big role in my life, and has had such a lasting impact on my life. Today, it feels like life has truly come full circle.

 Thank you so much for this award.
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The Shipley School is a private, coeducational day school for pre-kindergarten through 12th grade students, located in Bryn Mawr, PA. Through our commitment to educational excellence, we develop within each student a love of learning and a desire for compassionate participation in the world.