A Georgia Southern University student is saving lives, and is now receiving national recognition for her work.

In May 2022, Dollar attended a gala in Los Angeles for Gift of Life, an organization supporting bone marrow transplants. Dollar has been an ambassador for the organization for years and is responsible for organizing events in the group’s name.

While there, she was surprised with the Steve Bochco Award, named after the late television writer and producer, who had leukemia.

The accomplishment is the culmination of hard work and passion for the cause. For Dollar, the journey was far from an easy one.

In middle school, Brianne Dollar fell off her bicycle. However, she remembers how lucky she felt when she found a $100 bill near the crash site.

From this point on, her pendulum between luck and bad luck began to swing with a wider arc.

Dollar grew up in Hinesville, Georgia. As a high school student, she was looking forward to attending college as an engineering student. During her first week of senior year, she came down with a case of strep throat.

In November 2017, she visited her second emergency room after fighting the same symptoms for months. By that time, she was already fearing what was making her sick. A call from the doctor confirmed those fears.

Tests showed she had leukemia, and some cells were found in her spine. Dollar spent nearly 120 days over four rounds in Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta undergoing intense chemotherapy.

“It would have been shorter, but I went into septic shock the last round,” Dollar said. “And then that was it for the first time.”

The first time. No more than a year later, her symptoms returned. This time, she didn’t even answer the doctor’s phone call. She knew what the tests said.

“My phone was sitting on my bed and it started going off,” she recalled. “I said, ‘I’m not answering it.’ My dad answered it. I don’t know what possessed me, but I started making a sandwich and I just dropped a can on the floor just hearing his side of the conversation. I was like, ‘No, no, I’m done with this.’”