Huggins’ cancer fund receives local grant

The Mary Babb Randolph Cancer Center at West Virginia University has received $6,250 for the Norma Mae Huggins Endowment Fund from Little General Stores, Inc., which received a grant from British Petroleum.

Little General received money for the Huggins Cancer Research Fund and Toys for Tots as part of BP’s Fueling Communities program, which provides local organizations with money to promote health, education, youth, food or housing.

The money from Little General and funds Coach Huggins has already raised will go directly toward supporting cancer clinical trials at the MBRCC, said Scot Remick, director of the Cancer Center.

"Every dollar counts and every dollar raised is going directly to support and expand our cancer clinical trials programs at the MBRCC," Remick said.

Remick said Huggins has undoubtedly played a big part in getting the community involved.

"Coach Huggins has raised nearly one million dollars through the Norma Mae Huggins Endowment Fund to support cancer clinical trials at MBRCC," Remick said. "A significant portion of these funds has been matched by the West Virginia Research Trust Fund."

Remick said the money raised by the Norma Mae Huggins Endowment Fund will be put to good use as the health care professionals at the center diligently search for an end to cancer.

"Cancer research is vital if we are to improve our ability to prevent, diagnose and treat cancer, if not cure it," Remick said. "We want to make this disease a chronic and more manageable disease for our patients."

Most of the donations will go toward including more patients in clinical trials than were previously possible, Remick said.

"This support is quite significant, and without it, not as many patients would be able to be treated on clinical trials, and we would be unable to increase the number of clinical trials we offer," he said.

The money raised by the Norma Mae Huggins Endowment Fund will be used to help support the Clinical Trials Research Unit, which is essential for research nurses, data managers and study coordinators, as well as the trials’ electronic database at the MBRCC, Remick said.

"All of these are required in order to bring state-of-the-art cancer care through access to clinical trials for our patients and their families," he said.

Remick said working with Coach Huggins has provided an innovative way to advance cancer research at the University.

"We could not be happier with Coach Huggins’ efforts, which are indeed a unique and most welcome interdepartmental collaboration," he said.

Little General will continue to raise money for the Huggins Cancer Fund this summer at the Bob Huggins Fish Fry Aug. 31 during the Friends of Coal Bowl at WVU.

In addition to the Norma Mae Cancer Endowment Fund and Toys for Tots, Little General works to raise money for the Scholars Program of the Remember the Miners organization.

Collectively, Little General and the Huggins Cancer Fund have raised more than $100,000 for cancer research at the Mary Babb Randolph Cancer Center at WVU.