LIVE from The Travelers Championship: Project Purple

Dino Varelli, founder and CEO of Project Purple, and Daniela Jacobsen, community events manager, joins us live from the Travelers Championship to share the story behind the nonprofit and its mission to fight pancreatic cancer.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Good morning. I'm Alison de Murz. I'm over at the
Travelers Championship in Cromwell. We are celebrating birdies for charities
with all of these amazing organizations. With me right now
Dino Verrelli, founder and CEO of Project Purple, and Daniella Jacobsen,
community Events manager, also from Project Purple. Good morning, good
thank you, Good morning. For those who don't know about

(00:22):
Project Purple, how did it all begin and what is
it all about?

Speaker 2 (00:26):
Yeah, so Project Purple is really personal because it was
all started and the reason behind it is my dad
being diagnosed with pink gradic cancer in December two thousand
and eight. Allison, I wasn't in philanthropy. I never envisioned
a career in philanthropy and cancer was not foreign to
our family, but pank gratic cancer was really foreign. And

(00:47):
when my dad got diagnosed, I was with my mom
and dad every step of the way through his journey
over three and a half years. And there's so many
little stories that happen. The main motivation or why Project
Purple was started was my dad. I wanted to cure
him after you know, initially starting Project Purple in September

(01:07):
of twenty ten. My dad was still alive at the time,
and realizing like that wasn't going to become a reality,
we wanted to help other people, and my dad passed
in September of twenty eleven. We're now into fifteen years
of this and Project Purple has become so much more
than my dad. But my dad was the reason why
Project Purple was started, in our family's experience of going

(01:30):
through the journey with him on his journey with pink
gretta cancer.

Speaker 1 (01:34):
I have a personal connection myself my uncle, Terry, Terry O'Neil,
he was only fifty four years old, ran every day
of his life, didn't even ea ice cream. He was
so healthy, and unfortunately it took him quickly and in
about six weeks what actually could be fortunately too because
he didn't suffer that long. So I have my own connection,
and I'm so sorry for your loss. Thank you, But wow,

(01:54):
is your dad smiling down thinking look at the blessings
that have come out of all of this and all
of the people that you've helped. So thank you so
much for being here today and for serving community. What
can people do to help? Can we volunteer? Can we sponsor?
Can we donate.

Speaker 2 (02:11):
All the above, and yes, donate, please donate lots. Yes,
I mean, I think the biggest thing, you know, with
what we have done over fifteen years is try to
give families going through that journey support through our programs.
We have one of the countries leading patient financial aid programs.
So anyone battling as I knew what we went. You know,

(02:32):
my dad was fortunate he had insurance, we had retirement,
but a lot of people don't have that right and
especially now with the cost the rising costs, they should
say of healthcare, right. So we try to step in
and help patients through that journey financially, emotionally and provide
people with a very positive outlet that they can honor
loved ones, honor people that are going through that journey

(02:54):
through fundraising events and we do everything. I mean, we
started as a running charity and that's really where we
have a significant impact in the running community. But we
do everything now from pickleball to golf to barbecues. So
if you're interested in getting involved, you know, go to
the website. We have plenty of events here locally and
abroad across the world quite honestly, but you know, donating

(03:17):
is really impactful. People have the ability to go to
our website and donate, and you know, that's really where
I think people who have been impacted by it that
don't necessarily want to get involved in putting on event
or getting physical foreign event. We love doing endurance events.
We call them endurance because we love getting people moving,
because I think that's a positive thing, especially with this disease.

(03:38):
But if you don't want to get active and don't
want to sweat a little bit, you can always donate wonderful.

Speaker 1 (03:43):
It's Project Purple dot org and you can also go
to Travelers Championship dot com. Again you could donate for
Bertie's for Charity. For every dollar they raise, they get
fifteen cents from Webster Bank. Tell me about the impact
your programs have had on the patients and their caregivers.

Speaker 2 (03:59):
Yeah, so, as I mentioned, you know, we have this
patient financial aid program. Since inception, we've helped over fifteen
hundred families nationwide and we've paid out an excess of
one point five million in financial aid grants. You know
here locally, we are here in Cromwell, which I mean
I know everybody. This used to be the GHO, right,
the Great Hartford Open. But you know, last fall we

(04:21):
did something really really special for me here in my
home state of creating what will become the state's largest
high risk screening and surveillance program with a terrific partner
in Hertford Healthcare. We donated seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars,
which is the largest grant history for paint cretic cancer research.
And I'm excited to say, here, Allison, there's already you know,

(04:43):
we did this in November. I think Hertford launched a
program like February. They already have two hundred people in
screening and surveillance for this disease that are at high risk.
And this is really you know, people talk about how
do we change this course for people? You know, sorry
about your uncle. You know, six weeks is just way
too short of a time. We know this with all cancers.

(05:05):
The earlier you get a cancer, the probability of beating
that cancer and survivability skyrocket. And what this disease doesn't
have is early detection. And so how we're trying to
go about that of developing early detection modalities is by
screening high risk people. We know that there is a
large part of the population that are at higher risk,

(05:27):
whether that's a familiar risk, a genetic risk that's inherited.
We've got to get these people in screening and surveillance.
We've seen this with other cancers, colon cancer, We've seen
rates drop plummet over the last five years because of
screening and surveillance and because the guidelines have moved up.
So what we're trying to do, you know, here in
Connecticut but also around the world, is help centers develop

(05:48):
these screening programs to get people involved in screening, and
that will change the course for so many families that
eventually will get this disease.

Speaker 1 (05:58):
Do you have any events coming up upcoming this July?

Speaker 3 (06:02):
Over the fourth of July weekend, we have our Independence
Day double for Early Detection. That's a virtual event, so
anyone anywhere can get involved. In the fall, we also
are going to be a part of the New Haven
road Race, and in November we have our charity Pickleball tournament.
So those are always to get involved, but you can
also volunteer or create an event of your own.

Speaker 1 (06:25):
And sponsor, sponsor and donate. Again it's Project Purple dot org.
Or you could go to Travelers Championship dot com. I'm
speaking with Dino Verrelli, founder and CEO of Project Purple,
and Danielle A. Jacobsen, community events manager there. Thank you
so much for being here and for serving the community.
I think it's amazing what you've done. Doctor Google is

(06:48):
not accurate. It puts fear into everyone. They can go
to Project Purple dot org and get all of their
facts straight and have a community that will support them.
Thank you. Thank you both