Cancer, crown and cause
At 19 years old, Eliy Simmer is already many things: a nonprofit founder, cancer survivor and now, Miss Michigan Teen USA 2025. But the work that makes her proudest isn’t walking across a pageant stage, it’s delivering kits to hospital rooms.
Through her nonprofit, Eliy’s Sunflowers, she assembles and delivers “teen kits” to hospital floors filled with comfort items. Each kit includes a card with her story and an invitation to reach out.
“I want to inspire anybody, whether they’re going through a life-threatening illness or not,” Eliy said. “You can still do great things no matter what ... and you’re not alone.”
Now a freshman at Central Michigan University, Eliy is using her statewide platform to spotlight an overlooked group in pediatric cancer care: teenagers.
Eliy’s battle with Cancer
At 14, Eliy from Clare, MI was diagnosed with Ewing sarcoma, a rare and aggressive cancer that forms in bone or soft tissue. What doctors initially dismissed as a volleyball injury turned out to be a tumor on her scapula.
“My specialist told me my bone looked like popcorn,” Eliy said. “He was like, ‘You see this side? Yeah, it’s supposed to look like this side. It looks like popcorn.’”
Her parents, Joy and Mike Simmer, found out first. As they waited to pick her up from school, they watched her walk out the doors, laughing with her then-best friend, a moment Joy said felt like slow motion.
“I saw them come out the doors ... and I thought, 'Oh my gosh, that’s the last time she’s going to be like that.' It was almost like losing your innocence,” Joy said.
The diagnosis changed everything. Treatment meant 14 cycles of chemotherapy and 31 rounds of proton radiation. Eliy lost her hair, her energy and her sense of normalcy. But she never lost her spirit.
“She was the one holding us together,” Joy said. “She sat between us on the couch and said, ‘My hair can grow back. I can do this with you and Dad by my side.’”
They made car ride playlists to survive the drive to appointments: Weezer, Billie Eilish, Smashing Pumpkins. After treatment, they always stopped at Starbucks for a frappuccino, a ritual Eliy looked forward to.
“I feel like I really connect with music,” Eliy said. “There’s a saying, ‘I don’t feel the music, the music feels me.’”
What followed was a brutal year of treatment, then the slow process of healing.
Even after she rang the bell in January 2022, survivorhood brought new challenges: PTSD, scan anxiety and the aching sense that life was moving on while Eliy stood still. She also grappled with survivor’s guilt -- the weight of still being here while others she met along the way were not.
But instead of letting those struggles define her, Eliy turned them into fuel.
Creating a new normal
Eliy noticed during treatment that teenagers, stuck between pediatric toys and adult expectations, were often overlooked in hospitals.
“They have child life there, but a lot of the activities or the different supplies they have are more towards the littles,” Eliy said. “That was tough. With teens ... we have the T.V., we have social media, we have sleep and then we have hospital food. There’s not really much for us to do.”
So, she started packing care kits filled with items that helped her the most when she was going through treatment; non-slip fuzzy socks, chapstick, lotion, fidget toys, nose plugs and even pickle juice to help manage chemo-related nausea. Starbucks gift cards also became a staple in her kits.
Each kit is personal. She writes notes explaining the purpose of every item and offers her contact info in case someone needs a friend to talk to.
When she visits hospitals to deliver the kits herself, the moments can be emotional. Eliy said one teen hugged her through tears and said, "You don’t know how (badly) I needed this today."
The moments are often emotional, not just for the patients, but for families and staff who see someone thriving after treatment, offering hope Joy said.
“It’s nice, going and visiting the floors, and her being able to reach those kids and give them a little bit of hope, and for them to see her thriving, and know it’s possible they could get there,” Joy said.
A crown and a cause
Pageants weren’t originally part of the plan. Eliy had started modeling after treatment, reclaiming her relationship with her body. Then she heard about Miss Michigan Teen USA and saw it not just as a competition, but an opportunity to spread a message.
“I went into it not expecting to win at all,” she said. “I just went into it with the mindset of like; 'I'm going to do my best and I'm going to tell my story.'”
But on a stage in Port Huron this August, Eliy made it from the top 12, to the top six, to the final two, and then stood, stunned, as the crown was placed on her head.
“I was so shocked,” she said. “If you watch the video, I actually started clapping for the runner‑up because I didn’t know how pageants work. When they called the runner‑up, I thought she’d won. She looked at me like, ‘girl, you won,’ and I was like, ‘wait, what?’ Then they started putting the sash on me and it clicked ... and I started crying.”
Her final question from the judges, about the greatest challenge she’d faced and how she’d helped to raise awareness, couldn’t have been a better fit. She turned to the audience and spoke about her fight with cancer, her nonprofit and her mission to support teens like her.
“She was literally in her element,” Joy said. “It was like this magical, full-circle moment ... then she got in the car afterward, crying, and said, ‘this is huge for pediatric cancer.’”
New chapter of healing
Despite the crown, Eliy doesn’t pretend everything is perfect. She still gets scan anxiety, and feels the emotional weight of returning to a world that had moved on while she was fighting for her life.
“There’s this assumption that once treatment ends, everything goes back to normal,” Joy said. “But that’s not how it works. It’s a whole new chapter of healing.”
That same strength follows Eliy into college. At CMU, she’s studying to make a bigger impact, looking into public speaking, nonprofit work and media storytelling. Her Instagram is equal parts crown, kindness and chemo, because she refuses to hide any part of her truth.
“I want to spread more awareness about pediatric cancer … you can still do great things no matter what,” she said.
Growing sunflowers
Through it all, the heart of Eliy work remains the same: helping teens with cancer feel seen, supported and less alone. She’s already preparing for a fall delivery of kits and planning holiday-themed “Christmas Tree Kits” that include ornaments, lights and stockings.
“Don’t give up,” she said. “It’s hard to stay positive. It’s okay to have your bad days … just know you’re not alone in your fight."
Because Eliy didn’t put on a crown to be admired.
She put it on to make a difference.
