Fundraising For a Cure!

The JoAnne M. Sullivan Memorial Fund was founded in 2008 by Walter, Patrick and Meaghan Sullivan, in memory and honor of JoAnne, who had recently passed away from a long, but inspiring, battle with cancer. With a record year of $50,000 raised in 2017, the JoAnne Sullivan Memorial Fund is counting to support the ground-breaking research at Dana Faber Cancer Institute, that is directly changing the way cancer is treated. In 10 years, we have donated over $475,000, and with the support of the Jimmy Fund Golf and Dana Faber, we will continue to do so! All of the money raised is donated directly to Dana Faber's HER-2 NEU RESEARCH FUND, and already through this fund, doctors and researchers have found a certain combination of chemotherapy agents, that when applied in treatment, is associated with a low risk of cancer recurrence and decreased side effects. This highly advanced targeted treatment binds specifically to the positive cancer cells and delivers chemotherapy directly to those cells. They have also discovered a combination of chemotherapy agents that damage the DNA in these cancer cells in a way that they cannot repair, and as a result, the cancer cells die. Join us in 2023 at the Framingham Country Club for the 13th Annual Event!

Patrick Sullivan always starts his speeches off with a confession: That he is the biggest Mama's Boy that anyone will meet. In the final conversation that Patrick and his mother JoAnne had before she passed away, she asked him to promise that he would never let her fight end. That he would continue fighting and battling for her until no other sons and mothers face this same situation of having to have a final conversation under these circumstances. Patrick made his first public speech about his promise in 2010 and since has spoken at well over 100 different events for the American Cancer Society, Relay For Life and countless high schools, colleges and town meetings. He is endorsed by the Jimmy Fund and Dana Faber Cancer Institute for his fundraising and speeches. It is his life's goal to keep his mother's promise and he is determined to continue her fight until there is a cure. "As long as I'm living, I'm fighting, and as long as I'm fighting, my mother is going to survive this battle."

Patrick was the highest fundraiser in New England in 2010, and most recently was named the 2016 New England Volunteer of the Year by the American Cancer Society.