“The greatness of a community is most accurately measured by the compassionate actions of its members.” – Coretta Scott King

Dear friends,

On June 22^nd, we celebrated the Berris Awards by honoring Dr. Ryan Weight and the Bill Dea family. The Berris Awards are presented to people who are champions of Cancer Research in our community and who thus exemplify the passion of our founding father, Dr. Robert Berris

Dr. Weight is dedicated to working with patients with skin cancers and the Bill Dea family has held the Bill Dea Memorial Golf Tournament since 1994, with all of the proceeds coming to Western States (Bill died of cancer in 1993 and donated his body to medical research).

On August 14^th, we will hold our 16^th Annual Drive for the Cure Golf Tournament (our biggest fundraiser) and on September 22^nd, Rock with the Docs takes place again for the sixth year.

What do all three of these events have in common? The compassionate actions of our community members. In order for us to manifest our mission of making cancer clinical trials available to patients in their own communities, we need to partner with people of action who also are committed to our mission. Dr. Berris, Dr. Weight, and the Dea family didn’t set up to receive awards; they set out to take action against a disease that shape-shifts, steals, and wounds people who deserve a fighting chance which clinical trials can often afford them.

Our fundraising events are a further extension of people’s commitment to our organizations’ work.  People have many choices of ways to spend their time in our beautiful state and yet, our supporters chose to come to our events to play, volunteer, and socialize, and in those actions, honor patients and their caregivers.

Their compassionate actions along with those of many others in our midst are what make our community great.

We are pleased and grateful to be able to honor the 2023 Berris Award Winners and invite you to take compassionate action by attending one of our events.

Enjoy your summer and remember to take time to breathe and to tell the people you love, that you do.