Locals raise $500K

Organizers of the Auburn Community Cancer Endowment Fund celebrated this week after raising more than $500,000 before its two-year anniversary. The group of local volunteers has taken on the cause and is more than halfway to its million-dollar goal, showing no sign of slowing down. The group is even being used as a role model for similar efforts in other communities to join the fight against cancer, which in 2001 claimed more than 530,000 lives.Richard Azevedo, an Auburn investor and former city councilmember, spearheaded the effort two years ago. Recruiting the help of fellow Auburnites Dr. Virgil Traynor, Norma Harris and Dr. Ralph deVere White, of the UC Davis Cancer Center, he started the Endowment Fund to help finance cancer research. ?The original goal was $100,000 to get ourselves some sort of legitimacy, then get $1 million in five years,? Traynor said.The first event, a gala hosted by the UC Davis Cancer Center, surpassed the initial goal, bringing in more than $100,000, Traynor said. With such an encouraging start, more events were planned and more people got involved.Thunder Valley Casino donated almost $70,000 at its pre-grand opening in June. Then former Oakland Raider and football Hall-of-Famer Jim Otto came on board with his Swing at Cancer golf tournament, also in June. Auburn Valley Country Club donated its facilities for the tournament, as well as for the upcoming car show benefit, Concours d? Elegance. The Auburn Rotary Club hosted a benefit fun run, and Peabody?s Coffee in Sacramento is donating 10 percent of its kiosk sales to the Endowment Fund, Azevedo said. Many local supporters have donated their time, money and resources to pump up the fund, and their efforts are paying off. Traynor said the Endowment Fund is currently at the $504,000 and he has ?every degree of confidence it will make the million in five years.? When the goal is reached, only the interest from it will be used for research only, and the $1 million will never be touched, other than to be added to with future donations, Traynor said. ?Answers are going to come from legitimate research, and the way to get legitimate research is to support it,? Traynor said. ?What we?re trying to do is get Auburn a place in the picture.?Tom Venturino, development officer for UC Davis Cancer Center, said Auburn is most certainly in the picture. ?I?ve been in fund-raising for 15 years. I don?t think I?ve ever seen a group like this. It is a text-book example of organic grass-roots fund raising,? Venturino said. He added that UC Davis hopes to use Auburn as an example for other areas.?No other communities are doing this,? Venturino said. ?We want to take this model and replicate it in other communities. But it has to grow internally, because that?s where the momentum is.?Dr. Ralph deVere White echoes Venturino?s excitement about the success of Auburn?s Endowment Fund. ?What they?re doing is just marvelous,? deVere White said. ?They?re a marvelous example of what a community can do.? The Journal?s Bethany Harrison can be reached at bethanyh@goldcountrymedia.com.