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Jaycees
“…Service to Humanity is the Best Work of Life.”
These words, taken from the final line of the Jaycee creed, come to life in the North Carolina Jaycees Outpatient Treatment Facility at the Duke Comprehensive Cancer Center. Located on the second floor of the Morris Cancer Clinics, the North Carolina Jaycees have helped create a comfortable, humane environment for cancer patients while they receive chemotherapy and other infusion treatments, and for their families and friends.
In 1993, more and more outpatients were coming to a small treatment room in Duke’s Morris Cancer Clinics, and it soon became clear that the Cancer Center had to find a larger, more comfortable space for patients undergoing lengthy, often stressful treatments. When the North Carolina Jaycees heard about the cramped conditions, they stepped in and committed to raise the money necessary to move the treatment room to larger quarters and to make it a more pleasant, inviting place for patients. Thanks to the fund-raising efforts of Jaycee chapters all over North Carolina, the newly renovated facility opened its doors in 1996, creating a bigger, brighter place for patients and caregivers.
In the years following the opening of the new facility, the Cancer Center found that a huge increase in the number of patients was stressing the capacity of even the expanded treatment area. The Jaycees have stepped up again and pledged an additional $1 million to fund a second expansion of the facility -- which will more than double the size of the current treatment area -- and support additional projects that will help cancer patients and their families.
For more than a decade, the North Carolina Jaycees have helped the Cancer Center offer the most advanced care in the most compassionate manner. Jaycee chapters have been phenomenally successful in their fund-raising efforts, thanks in large part to Bob Timberlake, North Carolina’s best-known artist. Since 1989, Timberlake has donated 100 prints of his latest print to the Cancer Center. Raffling the prints is just one of the fun and innovative ways the North Carolina Jaycees raise money for the Cancer Center.
“The generosity of the North Carolina Jaycees has provided a wonderful facility to help cancer patients fight one of life’s toughest battles,” said Duke cancer patient Nancy Emerson. “The treatment facility has become the ‘living room’ to thousands of patients and their families every day. It is the room that gives hope.”
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