Sarah Lomax Gray – People to Watch 2015

In January 2012, 27-year-old Lauren Savoy Olinde lost her fight with skin cancer—but not before her best friend took up her cause. Now the director of the Lauren Savoy Olinde (LSO) Foundation, Sarah Lomax Gray fights for skin cancer education and prevention. Yearly events like the Top Hat Soiree and Hat Run (both nods to Olinde’s favorite sun protection) drum up funds for LSO’s current endeavor: the Sun Shade Project.

“The project came about with the realization that one severe sunburn in childhood raises chances of skin cancer in adulthood by 50%,” Gray says. The Sun Shade Project builds shade structures over local parks, beginning with last year’s $37,000 cover built over the BREC Perkins Road Community Park Playground.

With more places like the Goodwood Neighborhood Park on the to-do list, Gray sees 2015 as the year LSO “blows our hats off.” But she always, she says, keeps the foundation’s namesake in mind.

“I feel Lauren every day that I work for this foundation. In every situation I think about what Lauren would do. So I still get to be with her.” lsofoundation.org

Best advice that she’s been given
“You can only get to the rainbow through the rain.”