It will provide research into a specific type fo skin cancer.
Frederick, Md (KM) A cancer research fund has been established with the Community Foundation of Frederick County. Laura McCullough, the Foundation’s Director of Philanthropic Services, says this fund will provide grants to organizations doing research into Human Papilloma Virus Head and Neck Squamous Cell Carcinoma, a form of skin cancer. “This started with Brian and Beth Bell. They came to the Community Foundation because they felt that this was an important cause, and there just wasn’t enough awareness or monies being raised around it,”: she says.
McCullough says the couple hopes that further research into this type of cancer will help toward finding a cure. “Now there are vaccines for it,” she says. “But for an older generation, that wasn’t something that was possible before. So have men and women, women would have cervical cancers and men who would often get head and neck cancer because of HPV,” she says. HPV is the virus which causes Squamous Cell Carcinoma.
This is not the first cancer fund set up by the Community Foundation. But McCullough says it’s the first fund established for cancer research. “We do have other funds that support cancer patients, or their treatments and needs of patients during treatment,” she said.
The Foundation has a process for non-profit to apply for grants from this fund. “We have our impact grant cycle that happens each summer. And any non-profit can go on to our website for apply for all the grants that we have available to whatever applies to the project or program that they’re working on,” says McCullough.
The website is www.FrederickCountyGives.org.
McCullough says the Foundation manages close to 800 charitable funds. “The Community Foundation is the connector We connect the people who care about these causes with the actual cause. So we create these funds in perpetuity,” she says.
By Kevin McManus