SEQUIM –– A new program that allows donors to fund specific areas of cancer research begins today, named for Violet O’Dell, a Sequim girl whose bright spirit during a fatal fight with brain cancer caught the attention of the North Olympic Peninsula.
Project Violet, an effort from Dr. Jim Olson, who treated Violet at Seattle Children’s Hospital and the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, allows donors to sponsor research on specific proteins aimed at developing drugs to fight cancer, Alzheimer’s disease, autism and more.
Donors can sponsor those lines of research at low costs through projectviolet.org, which is being touted throughout the nation, starting today.
Violet died last Oct. 26 after doctors found she had an inoperable tumor on her brain stem.
Her valiant battle prompted various organizations to rally for funding to help her family, who often had to miss work to take her to treatments.
The Boys & Girls Clubs of the Olympic Peninsula’s Carroll C. Kendall Unit in Sequim its art room the Violet O’Dell Art Center.
The Sequim Education Foundation awarded this spring the $100 Violet O’Dell Memorial Award to entrants in its engineering challenge, which Violet won with her friend Flora Walchenbach in 2010.
Project Violet money will be used to fund doctors and research at first, according to a news release.
Once the organization develops a stable roster of doctors and researchers, the money will be used to further research how proteins can be used to fight inoperable tumors like Violet’s.
Donations are tax-deductible.
For more information on Project Violet, visit www.projectviolet.org.
