Mollie Biggane Melanoma Foundation's Golf Outing

Phil Honerkamp, Tom Matteini, Jim Brady, John Finnerty

On Monday, September 18th, over 300 supporters participated in the Sixth Annual Mollie Biggane Melanoma Foundation's Golf Outing, Dinner and Auction. The foundation was established after Mollie, a twenty year old Garden City resident, lost her battle with melanoma. The foundation's mission is to increase awareness for melanoma prevention, provide information and services on skin cancer detection and support melanoma patients through education of the latest treatments.

After dinner, guests viewed a video which highlighted the accomplishments of the foundation during the past year. The highlights included a partnership with the State of New York Health Education Sector who developed a teacher's guide for the foundation's educational skin cancer video "The Dark Side of the Sun". This DVD/CD package is now part of the health curriculum in every public middle school and high school in New York State. A similar program has been implemented in New Jersey covering all of the middle schools and high schools. This was a result of the foundation's partnership with the ACS and the State of New Jersey.

Bill Prager, Claire Hribar, George Hribar

The plan is to take this program national. The website wwwmolliesfund.org was upgraded to provide information on melanoma awareness, prevention and current medical initiatives. The foundation joined "One Voice", a national coalition in Washington DC to present a unified effort to support government funding for melanoma research. Throughout the year, the foundation ran programs for NY Physicians' Assistants, Rotary Clubs, GC Middle School, GC Pool, Universities and Businesses. Mollie's Fund, along with The Melanoma Research Foundation, sponsored a Melanoma Symposium for 250 Long Island residents .The program included presentations from four prominent doctors in the melanoma field.

Dr. Jedd Wolchok, PhD, MD, Associate Director of the Ludwig Center, Memorial Sloan Kettering, was the guest speaker at the golf outing/dinner. His talk addressed the lack of melanoma research funding, the increase numbers of diagnoses this year and the challenges in the medical community of fighting melanoma.

Rick Fortney, Bobby Burke, Peter Negri, Brian Negri Dan Riebling, Johnny Biggane, James Mundy