SEQUIM — Olympic Medical Center will be the first hospital in the state to offer breast cancer patients a new technology after this year’s Harvest of Hope Wine & Dinner Gala netted $290,350 in one night.
Proceeds from The Olympic Medical Center Foundation’s fundraiser Saturday night more than cover the $175,000 cost of the 3D Clarix Breast Specimen Imager.
The technology gives surgeons a 360-degree view of tumor margins in real time during surgery to ensure all of the abnormal tissue has been removed. That will reduce the need for repeat surgeries.
Dr. Sandra Tatro, the OMC cancer surgeon who had recommended the acquisition, was glad to hear enough had been raised to fund it.
“It will help us take care of folks,” she said.
The 23rd edition of the Sequim Cancer Center fundraiser, which was presented by Sound Community Bank and Arrow Marine Group, raised more money the night of the event than ever before, said Bruce Skinner, executive director of the OMC Foundation.
“Last year we raised a record $386,000, but it was due to a one-time gift of $200,000,” he said.
“We raised this year’s amount without the matching gift, so it was an incredible year.”
The annual Rick Kaps Award went to a couple who, individually and together, have a long history of supporting the cancer center.
However, Dave Blake and Kay Kaps-Blake “found it in a couple of ways kind of awkward,” Dave said before the event.
The award is named for Kay’s first husband, Rick Kaps, a Sequim teacher and legendary high school coach who died of cancer in 1998 at the age of 55. The award recognizes those who have displayed outstanding support of cancer care on the North Olympic Peninsula. Kaps was also a good friend of Dave, former CEO of Blake Sand and Gravel Inc., and owner of Blake Tile and Stone.
Both have solid roots in the community. Dave is a Sequim native whose grandmother was Carrie Blake, for whom Carrie Blake Park is named. Kay a longtime teacher, moved to Sequim to be Rick Kaps’ wife. Although they now live in Arizona, they remain tied to this community though children, grandchildren and their support of the cancer center.
“We have been involved with Harvest of Hope for some 20 to 25 years,” Dave said.
They made significant donations to the foundation, and Skinner would get in touch with them to discuss people who should get the award.
“We’d typically agree with him,” Dave said.
But, Kay added, this year, “We thought there are other people who should get the award.”
Both Rick and Dave were treated for non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma in Seattle.
“I always said it would have been really nice to be able to drive one mile to a cancer center where you get as good a treatment as in Seattle,” Dave said.
“I’m just glad they have a cancer center in Sequim,” said Kay, whose mother died of cancer at OMC. “It’s such a big burden on the family that they have to go to Seattle.
“Neither Dave nor my husband had the benefit of that.”
Special recognition was given to George Brown and Margery Whites, major donors to the OMC Healthcare Scholarship Fund.
Brown, a Sequim philanthropist, seeded the program, which funds all expenses for those who want to start or continue medical training, with a pledge of $500,000.
Whites, a former professor at St. Cloud State University in Minnesota whose husband died of cancer soon after they retired to Sequim, this month contributed another $50,000 to the program, bringing her total contribution to $100,000.
Sequim cycler David Toman told of surviving cancer and his care at the Sequim Cancer Center in Sequim.
“I told my friend I can’t wait to ring the bell,” he told the packed audience at Saturday’s event.
But then he found there was no bell for cancer survivors to ring at the center.
So he and his wife ordered bells for the place.
“We need to have that bell there,” he said.
Toman thanked all who assisted in his care, from doctors to all other staff, including nurses who, he said, “are the heart and soul of the center. They honestly care about each and every patient.”
In addition to the Clarix imager, the fundraiser also benefited the patient navigator program and the scholarship program.
The welcome was provided by Karen Rogers, and OMC interim CEO Mark Gregson thanked all who attended.
Since 2006, Harvest of Hope has raised more than $4.3 million for services, programs and equipment to local cancer patients being treated at the OMC Cancer Center in Sequim.
For more information, see the OMC Foundation website at omhf.org, phone 360-417-7144 or go to the office at 1015 Georgiana St., Port Angeles.
$5,000 donation spares pig
SEQUIM — Wilbur the pig, or maybe it’s Charlotte, has been saved from execution.
One of the items up for auction at the Harvest of Hope Wine & Dinner Gala on Saturday night was a 300-pound premium butchered pig valued at $1,750.
Dr. Sandra Tatro, cancer surgeon at Olympic Medical Center, offered a $5,000 donation if the pig’s life was spared.
The donation was accepted with the promise that the pig would be delivered to her home.
It was done on the spur of the moment, Tatro said Sunday as she waited for the animal to arrive.
“I just thought, the poor pig,” she said.
She’s not vegan, “but I do love animals. Plus I wanted to give a donation.”
Tatro had no idea if the pig already had been butchered, but she said, “I’m hoping I saved the life of the pig.”
Other than that, she said, “I have no idea.” She wasn’t sure if the animal would end up living on her 5 acres, sharing space with four chickens, a cat and a dog, or being donated to the Olympic Game Farm or some other place to live out its life.
If it arrived and if it were kept, it would be named Wilbur, if male.
“I don’t know what to name it if it’s a girl,” she said. “Maybe Charlotte.”
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Leah Leach is a former executive editor for Peninsula Daily News.
