Raising More Than Hopes

Meet the Phoenix Friends of the Arizona Cancer Center

In the mid 1980s the Arizona Cancer Center at the University of Arizona Health Sciences Center in Tucson had an impressive team of dedicated physicians and scientists but no dedicated building. Still there was the dream of creating a comprehensive cancer center in Arizona and eliminating cancer as a threat to humanity.

Sharing that goal were 12 energetic, farsighted Phoenix women. In 1986 they organized a dinner and auction at Saks Fifth Avenue calling it Evening in the Park. That initial effort raised more than $13,000 for cancer research. From that beginning emerged a volunteer organization called Phoenix Friends of the Arizona Cancer Center. Evening in the Park became an annual event that continues to grow in participants and proceeds every year.

Today the Friends are nearly forty members strong. Since that first event they have raised and donated more than $3 million to support the Arizona Cancer Center’s work in Phoenix, Tucson and throughout Arizona. Each year the Friends determine how and where their donated funds will be distributed, with special emphasis on funding research projects, new equipment and endowments.

Many of the Center’s services that were once only available in Tucson are also offered at the Arizona Cancer Center Research Pavillion at the Virginia G. Piper Cancer Center at Scottsdale Healthcare. This partnership brings new therapies to patients with cancer as well as genetic risk assessment and counseling to high-risk individuals. Blood and marrow transplants and innovative prevention research will also be available in the near future.

The Phoenix Friends of The Arizona Cancer Center continue to play a major role in funding these important services. You can help by joining them, supporting them or contributing to and participating in their Evening in the Park. To learn how you can help, please contact us today.

 

Members of the Phoenix Friends of the Arizona Cancer Center

Mrs. Dan Aspery (Kathy)
Mrs. Betty Belsher
Mrs. Craig Berge (Nancy)
Mrs. Clarence Bowe (Judy)
Mrs. James Boyle (Barbie)
Mrs. Irby Cain (Sue)
Mrs. Shaun Cantrell (Mary)
Mrs. Robert Farrer (Pamela)
Mrs. William Helfert (Brenda)
Mrs. Tony Komadina III (Beth)
Mrs. Gerald Luckman (Jane)
Mrs. Ed Lynn (Judy)
Mrs. Andy Matuszak (Carol)
Mrs. Jeffery Mitchell (Janet)
Ms. Susan Monahan
Mrs. Kenneth Piper (Suzanne)
Mrs. Charles B. Polk (Shirley)
Mrs. Joseph Presutti (Helene)
Mrs. Alan Robinson (Carol)
Mrs. Samuel H. Rogers, Jr. (Karen)
Mrs. Howard Schwartz (Brenda)
Mrs. Larry Staley (Kathy)
Mrs. Lawrence Stuckey (Linda)
Ms. Diane Taylor
Mrs. Jack Thomas (Joan)
Mrs. Terence W. Thomas (Naomi)
Mrs. Thomas Troch (Vicki)
Mrs. A. Linwood Waldrop (Carol)
Mrs. Richard H. Whitney (Linda)
Mrs. Sandy Pomeroy Wood
Mrs. Stephanie Ysmael

For more information visit www.phoenixfriends.org