A 30-year Partnership in Williamsburg
This year is the 30th in which MCV Foundation board member Charles Crone will organize the Massey Cancer Center 5K run in Williamsburg. The event has raised more than an estimated $250,000 and is Massey’s oldest standing community partner event.
Charles was new to fundraising when he began organizing the 5K in 1987, but he and his wife Ginny were runners, and seeing few compatible options where they lived, took advantage of the opportunity to create something they loved, in a place they loved, that would benefit a worthy cause.
The Massey Cancer Center 5K run in Williamsburg began on a relatively small scale, raising $3,000 - $4,000 annually. Each year Charles and Ginny enlisted more help from the Williamsburg community, including the College of William & Mary cross country and track teams.
As the team and the community were helping grow the event in 1993, Charles was diagnosed with lymphoma. Thankfully, by summer that year the chemotherapy was complete and Charles was recovering – getting stronger, feeling better and growing his hair.
“In my humble opinion, if you’re a cancer survivor, your job is to help the next guy or next lady that gets diagnosed,” Charles told us recently. “We were definitely inspired by the journey that we had been on.”
Charles has honored that creed ever since. In July of 1993 he joined the MCV Foundation Board of Trustees, and in that capacity has supported the schools, research centers and care units across the MCV Campus for nearly 25 years. He and Ginny are among the MCV Campus’s most generous benefactors, mainly supporting programs to help improve patient care and treatment delivery.
Last year the Massey Cancer Center 5K raised more than $21,000, and this year the goal is $30,000 in recognition of the 5K’s 30th year.
Other support in Williamsburg that Charles and Ginny provide is on the MCV Foundation’s Discovery Series Host Committee. Charles is a chief architect of the series, which brings doctors, researchers and specialists from across the MCV Campus to share expertise and create relationships with our friends in Williamsburg.
Charles believes anyone can contribute in the ways he has.
“Find something you’re comfortable with doing, whether it be the opera or a 5K run or a dinner,” he said. “If everyone would get involved in something like this it certainly would make a big difference.”
To learn more about giving to the Massey Cancer Center, organizing your own fundraising event or being a part of the MCV Foundation Discovery Series in Williamsburg, contact Brian Thomas.
