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Fraternity Pledges to Raise $10 Million for Huntsman Cancer Institute

Andrea Smardon
/
KUER

The Huntsman Cancer Institute will be getting some major donations from Jon Huntsman Senior’s college fraternity, Sigma Chi International.

Dozens of Sigma Chi brothers from across North America convened on the sixth floor of the Huntsman Cancer Hospital to announce a commitment to raise 10 million dollars in seven years. Matthew Thompson, an undergrad at Troy University in Alabama says cancer touches everyone.

“My grandfather is going through cancer treatments. He’s been told he has six months to live,” Thompson says. “So when you think about it on a large scale, it’s really easy to rally behind.  We look forward to partnering with the foundation, eradicating disease, and be the generation that sees the end of cancer.”

Jon Huntsman Senior announced that in honor of this commitment, the sixth floor of the hospital will be named for the Sigma Chi International Fraternity. He says federal funding from the National Institutes of Health has declined, but the cancer institute still spends close to 100 million dollars a year on research. 

“The only way we’re going to ever cure cancer is to have the young people like we witnessed today all get together and decide they want to end this disease,” Huntsman says.

Sigma Chi named the Huntsman Cancer Institute its preferred charity in 2005, and in 2013, the foundation was named its sole philanthropic partner. To date, the fraternity has raised more than 3 million dollars for cancer research.

Andrea Smardon is new at KUER, but she has worked in public broadcasting for more than a decade. Most recently, she worked as a reporter and news announcer for WGBH radio. While in Boston, she produced stories for Morning Edition, Marketplace Money, and The World. Her print work was published in The Boston Globe and Boston.com. Prior to that, she worked at Seattleââ
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