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Tess Finkle
Jack & Jill Late Stage Cancer Foundation
c/o Metro Public Relations
3282 Northside Parkway NW
Suite 100
Atlanta, GA 30327
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Jon Albert
Founder & President
Jack & Jill Late Stage Cancer Foundation
3282 Northside Parkway NW
Suite 100
Atlanta, GA 30327
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News
Palm Beach Post Feature
The Palm Beach Post
Golf marathon benefits cancer patients, families
By Bill Dipaolo - Palm Beach Post Staff Writer
Monday, February 15, 2010
It can't cure cancer, but the Jack & Jill Late Stage Cancer Foundation can build memories.
Jay Gannon's memories are riding a Ferris wheel in New York City with his wife, Colleen, and young son and daughter. The Cooper City resident, diagnosed with stage 4 melanoma, took the trip paid for by the foundation that sends cancer-stricken families on dream vacations.
"We had a suite for four days in Manhattan. The kids had their own big beds. We went on the double decker bus. We held hands in Central Park. It was so wonderful to forget about cancer for a while," said Gannon, 41, who left his job in October as student affairs administrator at Nova Southeast University.
Started three years ago, the nonprofit foundation has sent about 300 families on trips to Disney World, the Grammy Awards, swims with whale sharks and other events chosen by the families. Physicians recommend the families, who cannot apply themselves. Only families with a mother or father with late-stage cancer with children 18 and under are accepted.
The foundation plans a dawn-to-dusk golf marathon at PGA National on Feb. 27 to raise money. The golf marathon is the first of 10 planned nationwide this year.
Former West Palm Beach resident Jill Albert, who died of breast cancer in 2006, was the spark for the foundation. Jill worked in human relations for Coca-Cola before quitting to raise her two children. She found a small lump and was given a 98 percent chance of recovery.
But the cancer spread into her bloodstream. She died at 45 after four years of tests, chemotherapy and the unrelenting ups and downs of cancer.
"She was in perfect health. And very active," said her husband Jon, CEO and founder of the foundation. "The end was very difficult."
But pain is not what Jon and Jamie, 14, and Jake, 16, remember when they think of Jill. They remember the trip to Hilton Head Island in South Carolina they took just before she died. They recall her smiling face as she parasailed. How they played on the sand. They talked, laughed and argued, just like a regular family. And they didn't talk about cancer.
The idea was born.
"I wanted to give families the break we had," said Jon, 48 .
Two weeks before she died on Nov. 15, 2006, Jill hauled herself out of bed to the ribbon cutting of the Jack & Jill Late Stage Cancer Foundation. Jon met Jill while they attended the University of Florida.
The Atlanta-based organization survives on contributions. Some are large. Some are little.
"I got a bag full of change from a child who earned it from baby sitting. Cancer touches everybody," Jon said.