Meet Our Supporters

But for Hawkes, the moment was personal. “My best friend’s daughter, Vivian, was diagnosed with a brain tumor in 2018 at just 4 years old. It was inoperable with no known cure,” she said.

When Vivian was first diagnosed, Hawkes began looking for a way to take action.

“Watching from the sidelines leaves a hole,” said Hawkes. “I thought, ‘I’ve got to make a bigger difference.”

The research happening at Fred Hutch “was the kind of energy, passion and drive that I was looking for,” she said. In addition to making a personal donation, Hawkes, who is a financial advisor with The Matthews Group at UBS, reached out to the leaders of Fred Hutch’s Professional Advisory Council. The council unites professionals interested in helping Fred Hutch expand charitable giving and assist advisors whose clients may choose to include groundbreaking research in their legacy.

The council was full at the time, but Hawkes didn’t take no for an answer. “I had 45 minutes to pitch why they needed to create one more seat for me,” she said. The pitch was successful, and Hawkes got to work. Now the chair of the council, she continues to encourage her community and clients to support Fred Hutch, whether by giving, volunteering or joining an event.

“Just make that first move, and see how it feels,” she said. “Once you take that step, you start seeing Fred Hutch’s impact everywhere.”

Hawkes also chose to make Fred Hutch a beneficiary of her individual retirement account, or IRA. The choice offered her a way to balance her priorities. “I’m still raising my kids, with one in college,” she said. “So I thought, ‘I can make a bigger impact by sharing what I can leave in the future.” With an IRA, “you can create a beneficiary designation and say, ‘this part goes to my daughters, this part goes to Fred Hutch.’ It creates a legacy for my family and for research.”

When she advises her clients, Hawkes said, they “are thinking about the values reflected in their lives, and those are the values they want to include in their estate plans.” Often, establishing a gift through a will, trust or other planned giving mechanism fulfills that mission.

No matter how people give, Hawkes added that they make a difference. Vivian died two years after her diagnosis, but Hawkes’ support to Fred Hutch remains steadfast.

“Vivian is my ‘why,’” she said. “But since then, I’ve lost others: friends, colleagues and a fellow council member. This is a way we can help. You never know which gift, which dollar, is the one that will uncover the key to cancer. Every single donation and dollar is important.”

Supporters who contribute to Fred Hutch through a legacy gift become part of our Thomas Legacy Society. To learn more about how you can give through your estate, a donor advised fund (DAF), an IRA, or in another way, contact us at 206.667.3396 or at plannedgiving@fredhutch.org.

For Debra, including Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center in her estate planning is a powerful way to honor family members, friends, and all those who have been affected by cancer. “I don’t think I could name three people who have not been touched by this disease,” she says.

That includes her late husband Craig, who received treatment for cancer at Fred Hutch. From the minute they met in college, says Debra, his intelligence won her over. “I’m smart,” she laughs. “But Craig and his friends were ethereal.”

“And that’s a bridge into why I like Fred Hutch so much,” says Debra. “Just the intelligence there. The whole atmosphere really resonates with me, in terms of feeling like, ‘Boy, we’re really on the cutting edge of research.’”

After Craig’s passing in 2020, Debra generously made several gifts to the Fred Hutch Family Resource Center, which provides a welcoming place for patients and families to learn about a specific diagnosis. During Craig’s treatment, she says, “The [Resource] Center was my oasis of calm.”

More recently, she began to look for a way to increase her giving. After talking with her son and daughter-in-law and the Fred Hutch Planned Giving team, she decided to include Fred Hutch in her estate and designate her gift to advance colon cancer diagnosis, treatment, and care.

“I wanted the money to go to an institution that would be able to use it creatively to move research in cancer forward,” she says. “I cannot think of another place that my money would have had a greater impact to do good for people.”

To learn more about how you can make a legacy gift to Fred Hutch through your estate, contact us at 206.667.3396 or at plannedgiving@fredhutch.org

In a way, donor Doug Smith actually helped build Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center – literally. Doug and his wife, Mary Templeman-Smith, first got to know the organization when Doug was chief financial officer for University Mechanical Contractors (now known as UMC), a firm that helped plan and build the Hutch’s state-of-the-art Seattle campus. Over time, he became familiar with the Hutch’s research, and impressed by the integrity of its scientists and staff.

“We got to meet a lot of the doctors,” shared Doug. “We got to hear about the passion for the cures and the patients.” The couple’s connection with Fred Hutch “evolved through watching really, really good people talk about the things that we can do better,” he said. “And it was like, ‘Wow, I can’t do what they can do, but I can give dollars.’ And that helps.”

Making a difference

“Cancer has and will touch all of us,” shared Doug. “My sister lost her fight at 61. She didn’t get the benefit of the Hutch. … We just want to be part of making that expertise as available as we can.”

“We’ve also had friends that have gone through treatments for lymphoma and multiple myeloma. … So, we have that connection,” added Mary. “We have been very blessed with success in our life, with our family and business, so we want to share.”

For Doug and Mary, writing checks at fundraising events gave way to a desire for a more intentional giving approach. A donor advised fund made that possible.

Donor Advised Funds at Work

Donor advised funds allow an individual to set aside cash, property, stock, or other assets, receive a tax credit immediately, and then recommend grant money to nonprofits over time.

For the Smiths, setting up a donor advised fund was “intentional, methodical, and practical.” It was also powerful — giving them a new way to simplify their philanthropic giving and deepen their impact on lifesaving cancer research. In fact, Doug and Mary are not only making gifts to the Hutch from their fund during their lifetime, but have included the Hutch as a beneficiary of the fund as part of their estate planning.

“The [fund] is so flexible,” said Doug. “You can keep your financial advisor, have them manage the money, or you can choose funds managed by the donor advised fund.” He added that it also simplifies tax reporting – turning sheafs of receipts into “one little piece of paper.”

A family relationship

Now, the Smiths are planning to continue what has become a family relationship with Fred Hutch. One of their daughters, Lauren Smith, and her fiancé, Cam Lamarche, are part of the Hutch’s Innovator’s Network, which welcomes young professionals to build community and support cancer research. For their part, Doug and Mary are inspired not only by the Hutch’s established researchers, but by the passion of early career scientists. “It’s about making a difference,” said Doug. “And who doesn’t want to support their kid’s careers, their friends’ children’s careers, and the early career scientists setting out to change our world?’

“You know, it just makes me humbled to hear researchers talk about what they do,” he added. “Donating is the part I can do.”

Want to learn more about donor advised funds and how this giving option can work for you? Feel free to contact PlannedGiving@fredhutch.org for more information.

What do a sparkling collection of sports championship rings, a one-of-a-kind baseball glove, and a belt from boxing great Mike Tyson have in common? They’re all part of Hutch supporter John DeVore’s incredible collection of sports memorabilia.

After more than 40 years of collecting, he’s decided to donate the collection to Fred Hutch. Now, the pieces are headed to auction — delighting a new generation of sports fans and fueling cancer research at the Hutch.

DeVore said it all started when he met longtime Fred Hutch supporter and former Seattle Seahawk Jacob Green at a Seahawks golf tournament and dinner outing. The evening’s auction and Green’s generosity ignited DeVore’s passion for collecting sports memorabilia.

Over the years, DeVore’s collection grew to include hundreds of treasured pieces from a jaw-dropping list of players and teams: Magic Johnson. The Seattle Seahawks. Wilt Chamberlain. And more.

DeVore’s favorite pieces? “Well, the rings are valuable,” he said, citing a host of championship rings. “I was a big fan of Muhammad Ali,” he added, sharing a long list of collectables from the sports legend. The cache also includes an original prototype baseball glove made for Pete Rose.

Another piece, though less well-known, will find a special place in the heart of every baseball fan. It’s an award given to the comedians Abbott and Costello for the famous “Who’s on First” comedy sketch. “They got an award for that, for coming up with it,” DeVore said. “That’s pretty cool.”

DeVore said the donation was the right choice for him and his adult children. With all the details taken care of — and a tax benefit for the donation — it just made sense, he said, describing the entire process as “clean.”

“I think highly of Fred Hutch,” DeVore said, adding that his commitment to cancer research is personal. “I want to note that this donation is in honor of Jacob [Green]’s father, my wife Karen, and my son Denny who recently passed away from cancer.”

“What’s nice is that the dollars end up going to Fred Hutch,” he said. “It’s a substantial amount of income that’s going to help everybody there — and anyone with cancer.”

After crisscrossing the country in his youth — earning a master’s degree in history at Michigan State University, getting drafted into the army, and completing law school at the University of Puget Sound — he settled in the Pacific Northwest. And, as soon as his finances allowed, he began donating to a variety of organizations, including Fred Hutch. “Right about 1992 I actually started to have a bank account…so I could contribute to various causes,” explains Stan.

A few years later, he attended his first Hutch Award Luncheon through Fred Hutch — and loved it. The live annual event honors the organization’s namesake, baseball great Fred “Hutch” Hutchinson.

“I always have been a really big baseball fan,” recalls Stan. “And so that became for me really one of the highlights.” After that, he decided to simplify his giving by focusing his donations on Fred Hutch. In fact, the dedicated baseball fan went even further, drawing on his private collection of memorabilia to contribute to the Luncheon’s annual auction. “It’s just kind of snowballed from there,” says Stan.

Over the years, Stan’s contributions to Fred Hutch — and his community — have taken many creative forms. He’s raised awareness by building displays at his local library that feature baseball books, items from his collection, and information on Hutch research. He’s blogged about baseball cards featuring Fred Hutchinson’s career. And he’s even visited local bike shops to distribute posters for Obliteride, an annual bike ride, walk, and run to fundraise for cancer research at the center.

This year, Stan also decided to give by setting up a charitable gift annuity, an option that allows anyone to make a tax-advantaged donation to Fred Hutch and receive a small sum of money back every month for the rest of their lives.

“It should be money that basically you want to go to the charity,” explains Stan. “And it’s good in the sense…that you have an income stream that will come back to you. But the most important thing, really, is the money goes to a good cause.”

No matter how you contribute, says Stan, donating makes a difference.

“After a while, you just say, look, you know, I only need ‘X’ number of dollars. And that’s basic, and unfortunately, there are a lot of people who don’t have that X number of dollars…just to make basic needs. But once you get past that, then there’s not a whole lot of point in adding a bunch of zeros to your bank account. Those are values I think are important to anybody to have — and a lot of people have them. If it wasn’t a widely held need, then places like the Hutch just wouldn’t exist.”

Interested in setting up a charitable gift annuity with Fred Hutch? Find out how. Questions about planned giving? Contact us.

A founding scientist at Fred Hutch, Nobel Prize winner Dr. Thomas developed bone marrow transplantation as a cure for leukemia, making his name as the “father” of this lifesaving advance. His wife Dottie worked tirelessly by his side.

In 1990, Dr. Thomas won a Nobel Prize for pioneering bone marrow transplantation as a curative therapy for leukemia and other blood cancers. He, Dottie and other team members persevered against the odds to save patients’ lives. This research continues to save lives today through the Hutch’s preeminence in mini-transplants that use minimal radiation and in cord blood transplants, which offer better matches for those unable to find other donors. In addition, it laid down the roots of modern immunotherapy, which is leading a new revolution in cancer treatment and cures.

Don and Dottie left a legacy not only of lifesaving scientific discoveries but also of their spirit of generosity. They established a charitable trust that paid them income for their joint lifetime, with the remainder value benefitting Fred Hutch at their passing. Other gifts established “Dottie’s Bridge,” an endowment designed to help promising researchers bridge the gap between the end of their fellowships and their first federal grant awards. With these gifts, the Thomases continue to propel innovative research, and improve patient care, far into the future, even after they themselves are gone.

Interested in learning more about how Dr. Thomas changed cancer treatment and helped create the vibrant Seattle biotech industry of today? Check out this story from KOUW-FM.

Jim and Diane Watson built their life around family. Diane considers raising their three children — two girls and one boy — the highlight of her life. For Jim, a University of Washington graduate who forged a 30-year career in California at Ford Aerospace Corporation (later Lockheed Martin), “family was the reason for everything.”

After shepherding their children into adulthood, the Watsons eagerly anticipated caring for an equally close-knit third generation. At first it seemed to Diane and Jim that grandchildren would never come, until Karen, their second-born, gave birth to their much-loved and long-awaited first grandchild, Nigel. Nigel was born almost 18 years ago. Joy was fleeting.

“He was diagnosed with leukemia when he was 4 months old. He died when he was 8 months old. It was a very, very difficult time,” recalls Jim, whose voice still quivers when he remembers Nigel.

The Watsons carry Nigel in their hearts always, and they want to spare others the same pain they feel. Diane and Jim named Fred Hutch as the beneficiary of their charitable trust so that they could support pediatric leukemia research and be involved in starting new cures and better treatment options.

“Cancer is so devastating. It’s our great hope, really, that the Hutch will be able to mitigate so much of that, and find cures,” says Diane.

Now the proud grandparents of four more grandchildren born after Nigel died, Jim and Diane take great satisfaction from knowing their gift will help other children and grandchildren lead longer, healthier lives.

“I can’t think of a better way to leave a legacy than that,” says Jim.

Lynn Lippert and her wife, Sal Jepson, shared a passion for life and bonded over their love of traveling and the outdoors. After Lynn received her second breast cancer diagnosis, she and Sal decided to meet the challenge by joining Fred Hutch’s annual Climb to Fight Cancer. Lynn surprised herself with her initial success, raising $17,000 for lifesaving research at the Hutch.

Following Lynn’s third cancer diagnosis and the loss of her brother to prostate cancer in 2011, Lynn and Sal decided to establish an endowment at Fred Hutch. Reflecting on their motivation, Sal says, “Endowment goes on forever. It was really important to us that our gifts and fundraising are not one-time things, that it’s more than us.”

Lynn and Sal started their endowment with an initial gift to Fred Hutch and increased its size through additional fundraising using a Fred Hutch personal fundraising web page, gifts from their IRAs and a bequest in their estate plan.

Since her first climb in 2005, Lynn made 20 additional climbs and raised an amazing $340,000. While continuing to receive chemotherapy for her fourth cancer diagnosis, Lynn summited Mount St. Helens to raise additional funds and further her commitment to curing cancer. Her determination and enduring spirit touched the lives of many, and even after her passing in 2021, her legacy lives on in the fight against cancer.

Sal says that she and Lynn’s support proved that “even people of modest backgrounds can make a difference.” The endowment supports pilot projects in breast cancer research and benefits researchers who have brilliant ideas but can’t yet get National Institutes of Health funding. At this stage of research, only private dollars can help, and “a little bit can go a long way,” Sal says.

To learn more about endowment gifts, visit fredhutch.org/endowment.

Michael Rubin is not only a Fred Hutch employee; he is a former Hutch patient as well. In 1987, he had a bone marrow transplant for leukemia. April 1, 2017 marked the 30th anniversary of his lifesaving treatment.

As Director of Philanthropic Gifts in Fred Hutch’s Philanthropy department, Michael is dedicated to raising money for cancer research. As father to his teenage daughter, Mallory, he is immensely grateful for his time with her. He chose to include Fred Hutch in his will because of his deeply personal connection to our mission to eliminate cancer. “The people of the Hutch work so hard to give people like me a second chance at living full and meaningful lives — I give back because they can’t do it alone.”

Yahn Bernier and Beth McCaw view philanthropy as a family value. Since the earliest days of their marriage, they set up bequests to ensure that the charitable organizations they support will benefit after they are gone. Their goal is not only to help those causes but to send a message to future generations. They want to impress upon their young daughter the importance of giving as a lifelong passion. “We were given great gifts, but they’re just ours to hold for a very short period of time,” Beth says.

In 1998, they left budding legal careers in Atlanta to move to the Seattle area, where Yahn had an opportunity to try something completely different. He joined a small start-up company, Valve, to help design video games. Until then, it had just been a hobby for him, but he certainly had a knack for it: Valve today is one of the world’s leading video game producers. Beth continued her career as an estate-planning attorney, which brought her to the Washington Women’s Foundation and a network of Fred Hutch supporters.

“We’re both fairly entrepreneurial people — we really love this spirit of innovation here at the Hutch,” she says. “Yahn and I both felt like medical research was an important thing for us to fund.”

Cancer research is close to their hearts. Beth’s mother is a breast cancer survivor, and Yahn’s mother died of complications from throat cancer. And the couple believes their Hutch involvement provides lessons to their 9-year-old: “We’re always looking for ways to engage our daughter in philanthropy and in science,” Yahn says.

When David Strong was diagnosed with esophageal cancer in 2004, he was devastated. He was also determined to get the best care possible, so he flew back to Boston, the city where he and his wife Anne Jannetti had grown up, to get a second opinion from the doctors at Massachusetts General.

“We knew there was good care there but they told me, ‘If you’re in Seattle, you’re in really good hands,’” he said. “That felt great.”

Strong returned to Seattle and met his surgeon and medical oncologist, both of whom had trained at Massachusetts General before moving to the Northwest. His oncologist Dr. Renato Martins was even wearing a Red Sox jersey and hat the day the two met.

“He went to Harvard,” he said. “That’s how he became a Red Sox fan. It was good from that day on.”

Much like his favorite baseball team — which after 87 years, finally won their first World Series — Strong is incredibly resilient. The longtime executive chef even worked through most of his treatment, which included chemotherapy, radiation and extensive surgery.

“Working through treatment was important to me,” said Strong. “It kept my mind off of it. I used to leave work every day at 11 o’clock and then be up there at SCCA at 12 to hit the infusion room and then radiation.”

Since treatment, Strong and his wife Anne Jannetti have become avid travelers, visiting 36 countries all over the world. Their favorite destination: Paris.

“We always did love to travel but [the cancer] really put it into perspective,” said Jannetti. “There’s nothing like a diagnosis to make you realize life is short.”

The lifesaving cancer treatment Strong received at Fred Hutch’s clinical care partner, SCCA, also made the pair realize the value of research, which is why they decided to make Fred Hutch a beneficiary of their retirement plans.

“We’re compelled by the Hutch’s big hairy audacious goals to cure cancer,” she said. “That’s important to us. Cancer is a strong adversary and we fought back just as hard. We had topnotch care at SCCA powered by lifesaving Hutch research on our side!”

For the patients who will benefit from this couple’s generosity, that’s a home run.

With both hands, Gene Barnes clutches the neatly bound book. It is wrapped in a deep purple dust jacket on which shine the gold letters of its title, The Story of a Courageous Lady. He softly turns the pages that preserve so many of the stories and photographs from the life of his treasured wife, Beverly.

Gene assembled the book himself after Beverly died in 2006. It is an especially fitting tribute since the couple first met while browsing a book carousel at a Christian singles conference in Seattle in 1981. Eight weeks later they married. For the next 25 years, Gene, a teacher born in Kansas but raised in Washington, and Beverly, a native of Nova Scotia who moved to British Columbia after college, never stopped making memories together. They loved biking, hiking, skiing and, especially, traveling.

In 2001, their life took an unwelcome turn: Beverly was diagnosed with leukemia. “After about six months [of treatment], we were in remission,” Gene remembers, “and then we … began living our lives again. We even took a couple trips.” In 2005, they added another memorable adventure, completing the 206-mile Seattle to Portland bike ride, something Beverly had always wanted to do.

But by the end of that year, the cancer returned, so Beverly and Gene came to Fred Hutch in Seattle so she could receive a bone marrow transplant. Things went well for the first few months after the treatment, until complications emerged from a side effect called graft-vs.-host disease, in which the donor cells attack the patient’s healthy tissues.

“It was a trying time … and of course that is part of the reason for me wanting to make a donation, a legacy,” Gene says. He decided to name Fred Hutch as the beneficiary of a commercial annuity, to make it possible for researchers to create safer, less arduous therapies — to help them start new cures.

“I noticed that a lot of good things have occurred here [at Fred Hutch], a lot of very important people, doctors, have been here and done some very important work, and when you have Nobel Prize winners, well, you know that something good is going on here.”

The other reason behind both Gene’s planned gift and the biography he lovingly crafted, which he’s donated to the Fred Hutch library, is no less heartfelt: “I just want other people to be able to share a little bit of what Bev was really like,” he says. “I want the memory of Beverly to live on.”

Jay Holman became engaged in the research at Fred Hutch for many reasons. Breast cancer took the life of his mother, Lucille, at the age of 65, and his sister Lynn Holman Riggs was successfully treated for the disease this past year. Jay himself had surgery for stage 2 melanoma in July 2010.

Throughout his follow-up care, Jay admired the scientific innovation he witnessed firsthand at Fred Hutch as well as the skillful application of this innovation at the Hutch’s treatment arm, Seattle Cancer Care Alliance.

Jay is a retired city manager of SeaTac, Washington, and retired lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Air Force Reserve. His scientific curiosity stirred as his health improved, and his ties to the Hutch grew stronger. At events, he took the opportunity to speak with scientists, including immunologist Dr. Philip Greenberg, to keep tabs on current research, and he toured the lab of melanoma researcher Dr. Sylvia Lee. Jay takes detailed notes at his own SCCA checkups with Dr. Shailender Bhatia. Every spring, he enrolls in the daylong Northwest Melanoma Symposium.

“I’m almost getting my M.D. here,” he jokes.

Impressed by the Hutch’s experts, grateful for the help he has received, and mindful of his family’s struggle with cancer, Jay began thinking of ways to help Fred Hutch. To honor his parents, he created the John H. and Lucille V. Holman Endowment Fund. Half of his bequest will fund melanoma research; the rest will support breast cancer research.

Through his planned gift, Jay wants not only to honor the past, but to acknowledge the Hutch teams who have kept him healthy and whose research builds hope for the future.

“The field is exploding right now. There is a revolution in treatment,” Jay says. “Let’s get serious about trying to do away with cancer.”

It was 1983, and the stars were aligning for Laura DiLella. She and her husband, Jim, just had a baby boy after a long struggle with infertility. Laura was back at work as a nurse at a New Jersey hospital, a job she loved. Then Laura started having bouts of fever and fatigue. She went to her physician, never expecting the diagnosis: acute myelogenous leukemia. She and Jim were devastated. Suddenly, the stars fell from the sky.

Three thousand miles away, as Laura and her family contemplated treatment options and struggled with the plague of emotions that stalk a frightening disease, Dr. E. Donnall Thomas and a team of researchers at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle were pioneering techniques in bone marrow transplantation that held hope for patients like Laura. Her oncologist urged her to go to Fred Hutch.

Laura made the journey to Seattle for treatment. Over the next four months, with the help of her family and friends (her sister would be her bone marrow donor), she went through the arduous and often lonely ordeal. When she returned home, Laura was filled, as she described, “with a sense of hope for my future” and a determination to help others going through the same thing.

Five years later, Laura became an oncology counselor and helped start a bone marrow transplant support group at the medical center where she then worked. Three decades after her cure, Laura still practices what many cancer survivors discover — the joy of living one day at a time. She and Jim have especially found everyday joy in watching their son, Jimmy, grow up. He is now a successful and happily married man, soon to be a father himself.

During her time at Fred Hutch, Laura learned two indelible lessons: Cures for cancer can spring only from innovative scientific research, and the embrace of family and friends is vital for patients as they journey through treatment. For these reasons, Laura and Jim have established a charitable lead trust, which provides income to support patients through Fred Hutch’s Family Assistance Fund.

Dr. Lora-Ellen McKinney knows that world-class cancer treatments require world-class research. As a volunteer member of Fred Hutch’s Institutional Review Board (IRB), she evaluates the design and conduct of our clinical trials to make sure Fred Hutch research meets the highest standards.

In clinical trials, researchers must first glean information about how treatments work from small groups of patients, so it’s imperative that patients in these trials reflect the diversity of the wider population as much as possible. Lora-Ellen believes in sharing medical breakthroughs with all, and her IRB role enables her to support clinical trials designed to include ethnically diverse participants.

Lora-Ellen’s role in the IRB is an outgrowth of her lifelong work as a community-oriented trailblazer. Her wide-ranging career as a researcher, child clinical psychologist, policy analyst and hospital administrator working with at-risk children and minority patients taught her how diversity in research benefits health care. She even served as the first African American page in the Washington State Legislature.

To devise brilliant methods to treat and prevent cancer, “you absolutely must have researchers willing to imagine and investigate crazy ideas, and Fred Hutch scientists do this incredibly well,” Lora-Ellen says. “Fred Hutch gives hope,” she says.

Lora-Ellen knows that innovation leads to hope and requires philanthropic support, which is why she is providing for Fred Hutch through a bequest in her will. Her gift will provide Fred Hutch with resources to engage African American participation in clinical trials for cancer and infectious diseases.