The
amount of revenue flowing into cancer foundations is astonishing. However,
still to this day, it simply is not enough. There are foundations everywhere you
turn such as the Susan G. Komen foundation for breast cancer, The American
Cancer Society, The Livestrong Organization, The St. Jude Organization, The
Jimmy Fund and many, many more. Every checkout line you approach has a box for
your change. These seemingly insignificant containers will touch more money
than I could even imagine. Stop N’ Shop, a grocery store local to the east
coast has raised over 50 million dollars in change from their checkout lines
since 1995 in honor of the Jimmy Fund! In just one year of fundraising with the
checkout line method, Walgreens Co. collected over 8 million dollars for Susan
G. Komen for the Cure.
Before
there were checkout line charities and many of these other foundations, Dr.
Sidney Farber was inspired to draw from the public to aid in his chemotherapy
cancer treatment research for childhood leukemia. At the time there was very
low survival rate and to reverse this outcome, researchers needed one resource.
Money. Einar Gustafson, publicly referred to as Jimmy, was the face behind the
Jimmy Fund. Dr. Farber took the opportunity to get Jimmy on a national radio
program to share his fatal story and ask for donations. Jimmy himself was
asking for a TV set to watch his favorite baseball team, who then surprised
Jimmy on the show. However, within the year, over 200 thousand dollars streamed
in to help Farber’s research. To this day, the Jimmy Fund has collected over
750 million dollars put towards the fight against cancer.
Despite
these tremendous efforts and donations, cancer still has the upper-hand. Great
and cast developments and discoveries have arisen in this fight. However the
answer to the cure is still unknown, which means funding and donations must
continue as we get closer and closer to the end. As stated by Siddhartha
Mukherjee in terms of the neglect of cancer research at the time in 2010, "There are not over two dozen funds
in the U.S. devoted to fundamental cancer research. They range in capital from
about $500 up to about $2,000,000, but their aggregate capitalization is
certainly not much more than $5,000,000...The public willingly spends a third
of that sum in an afternoon to match a major football game.” Although
the awareness and support of cancer research has risen, there are still large
gaps in certain aspects and types of cancer that must be addressed.
Sources:
"Financial
Resources." Cancer.Net. American Society of Clinical Oncology,
17 June 2011. Web. 12 Apr. 2016.
"The Jimmy Fund." Wikipedia.
Wikimedia Foundation, 1 Apr. 2016. Web. 12 Apr. 2016.
Jones, Jennifer Amanda.
"Checkout Charity: How Do the Pennies Add Up?." Non Profit Quarterly.
Institue for Non Profit News, 2 Sep. 2013. Web. 12 Apr. 2016.
"Mission." The
Jimmy Fund. Dana - Farber Cancer Institute, 2016. Web. 14 Apr. 2016.
Mukherjee, Siddhartha. The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of
Cancer. New York: Scribner, 2010. Print.
I loved reading this article! I had no idea that the little change containers at the grocery store could raise so much money. I'll definitely keep that in mind next time I have some extra change. I'm glad so much money is being raised for cancer research, but it also makes me curious how the money is shared between different kinds of research. Some are obvious, like the Susan G. Komen is for breast cancer, but I wonder how the American Cancer Society decides what to do with the money they receive.
ReplyDeleteIt is amazing to hear about how much money simple donations containers can make. But for me, it also brings up the question of where the money is going to? I know it is donated to a cancer research facility, but it would be interesting to see the statistical breakdown of how the money is effectively used.
ReplyDeleteAnd after posting that comment, I just read Jordan's post where she shares a website that provides that information.
ReplyDeleteIt's wonderful seeing how much the little containers at grocery stores and gas stations raise to fight the battle against cancer. Similar to both Rachel and Josiah, I wonder how organizations decide what proportion of the money goes towards research for what cancer. Pennies do add up for these foundations. However, how do they determine which cancer research the funds go to?
ReplyDeleteThis really does show that those few coins in your pocket can add up to a considerable sum of money over time if everyone contributes. Every little bit counts, but I do wonder how we can use this money for efficiently. You would think with so much money going into research, more results would be had. I think it may be time for us to reevaluate the efficiency of various charities so that we can put our money towards the one who have shown the most definable success in improving the lives of cancer patients.
ReplyDeleteLooking at Jordan's comment, she does have a point. There is so much money that is in total adding up for all these charities and organizations that support the development for a cure. Yet there have been no results in that direction. It may be more than just "Where is all that money going to?". It is a matter of whether or not the "cure" for cancer is one that is easy to obtain, or whether one exists or not to begin with. People should not jump to that conclusion, but instead realize the task of finding a "cure" is not, or will not in this case, be easy. If that were the case, we would have it already.
ReplyDeleteThis shows that small contributions add up to large sums. Unfortunately, cancer is not one disease but many. Cancer research has not found a "cure" but it has led to treatment and increased knowledge which will continue to add (just as the coins) to future developments.
ReplyDelete