The Story of the Jimmy Fund

The Jimmy Fund started in 1948 when the Variety Club of New England (now the Variety Children's Charity of New England) and the Boston Braves baseball team joined forces to help a 12-year-old cancer patient dubbed "Jimmy." On a national radio broadcast, millions heard the boy visit his heroes from the Braves as they stood by his hospital bed. Contributions poured in from people everywhere, launching an effort that continues to bring hope to thousands of kids and adults.


The Jimmy Fund Clinic

The Jimmy Fund Clinic at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute is a place where children and their families find hope.  For people in New England and around the globe, the Jimmy Fund Clinic is one of the world's premier centers for pediatric cancer research and treatment. Starting in the 1940s, when Institute founder Sidney Farber, M.D. used drug therapy to achieve the first-ever remissions of childhood acute lymphoblastic leukemia,
Dana-Farber researchers have made strides against virtually every type of cancer that strikes children, from solid tumors that involve individual organs to those that affect blood or lymph.  The clinic is also a place where vintage Disney paintings adorn the walls, the waiting rooms are playrooms, and caring doctors and nurses provide expert and compassionate care for children with cancer.  Designed specifically for the comfort and convenience of pediatric cancer patients and their families, the Jimmy Fund Clinic follows Farber's "total patient care" philosophy, assuring that a patient's psychological, family and spiritual needs, as well as their medical needs, are met.  Through a unique and long-standing collaboration, Jimmy Fund Clinic patients receive inpatient care when needed at nearby Children's Hospital Boston, the nation's premier pediatric medical center.
 

The Dana-Farber Cancer Institute

and the Jimmy Fund Clinic

Experts at Children's Hospital Boston and Dana-Farber Cancer Institute are internationally known for their laboratory and clinical research findings. In addition to offering the most Phase I clinical trials in New England, laboratory researchers at Children's and Dana-Farber examine every aspect of cancer from its scientific origin to molecular response to new drug combinations. As a result, findings from Children's and Dana-Farber have been responsible for dozens of advances in the treatment of pediatric cancer that have resulted in improved survival rates for nearly every variety of childhood cancer.  Key accomplishments include the first successful remission of childhood leukemia by Sidney Farber, MD, in 1947 and introduction of multiple agent treatment (combination chemotherapy) for leukemia in 1972. With successful improvements, we have attained childhood leukemia cure rates of close to 80 percent.


Physicians from all over the world come to Boston to study pediatric hematology/oncology through the combined Dana-Farber Cancer Institute/Children's Hospital Boston's pediatric hematology-oncology fellowship program. This program has trained more leaders in the hematology and oncology field than any other. In fact, approximately 40 percent of the Hematology/Oncology Division Chiefs in the United States were trained through our program.