August 12, 2023 • 30 mins
Dr. Paul Gerson is the founder of the Periwinkle Foundation and Doug Suggitt is their executive director. They are celebrating 40 years of serving children who are fighting cancer. They’ve built an amazing camp for these special kids and their families. It’s a full-fledged medical facility as well, allowing campers to continue their chemo or receive whatever care they may need while enjoying a most American pastime: summer camp. They are also behind the iron Sommelier event, their big fundraiser which is on November 9th. While you listen to Dr. Gerson tell us how he founded this Org, go their website and see their life-changing work: www.periwinklefoundation.org
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(00:06):
Welcome to Houston, PA, Houston'spublic Affairs show, an iHeart Media broadcast.
Our disclaimer says that the opinions expressedon this show do not necessarily reflect
those hell by this radio station,its management staff, or any of its
advertisers. My name is Laurent Iam the Texan from France, and we're
going to talk about eating and drinkingbecause in some places in the nonprofit world,
(00:31):
they know to raise money by organizingamazing events like the Iron Saumlier or
the Iron Bartender. If you recognizethose events, you know that my guests
are here from the Periwinkle Foundation.We are a city that is rich in
philanthropy in Houston. It is absolutelyincredible what nonprofits are capable are able to
(00:52):
do in this city because of thegenerosity of our citizens. Houstonians, especially
those who are born here, seemto be the ones who are the most
likely to be ignorant of this fact. It's maybe it's because as part of
their general horizon, but as aFrench guy, as I'm an expatriate technically
speaking, although depending on the politicalconversation, I might identify as an immigrant
(01:18):
because I can but one of thethings that we immigrants an expatriates notice is
the incredible can do generosity that Houstonian'sdisplay. It is not uncommon. In
fact, that happens all the timethat somebody will just have an idea to
start a nonprofit organization and they findthe millions of dollars that they actually needed
to build. They say, afully medicated camp for children. And that's
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what the Periwinkle Foundation is known for. They're an organization that believes that children
fighting cancer should be able to goto camp, among the things that they
can do to raise their mental level, their optimism, and you know that
mental state that can be crashed byyour body. We talk a lot about
how mind over body the body affectsthe mind. A healthy body, healthy
(02:00):
mind and vice versa, and inmedicine we know that that is absolutely true
and that people who have a goodoutlook, who are optimistic or more optimistic,
people who can be taught to bemore optimistic about their condition are very
often the ones who convalesce the fastestand heal the fastest. To talk about
all these things, and even PaulNewman at some point I guarantee it I
(02:23):
have guests here from the Periwinko Foundation. Doctor Paul Gerson is the founder of
the Periwinkle Foundation. He was alsoin the Air Force before he did all
that, and with him as DougSuggett, he is the executive director of
Perry Winkle Foundation. Doug, welcomeback. I'm happy to see you again.
Every time you come here, wehave the opportunity to talk about wine.
(02:45):
Thank you very much for bringing oneof your bottles at the Ironsmlie event.
You're going to have this special winethat is made for you. There's
a winery that makes a charity wine. They basically create this wine every year
and they put a label in accordsto the organization they decide to support.
Tell us a little more about them. They deserve a shout out. Yeah,
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it's our friends at the Nice Winery. They've been a tremendous partner of
the Periwinkle Foundation and each year forthe last eight years have created a bottle
of wine and it's the Periwinkal CharityWine. And what they do is they
pick a piece of art from makinga mark, which is part of the
programs that we do at to checkthe Children's hospital in which kids create art
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and so forth while they're going throughtheir cancer treatment and the team at the
Nice Winery pick a piece of artout of hundreds of pieces of art and
it becomes the label on the bottleeach year and proceeds from the cell of
that wine help fund Periwinkle camps,arts and survivor programs. So we're very
grateful for the support of Nice Wineryand the impact that they make at Periwinkle
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from a funding standpoint, but alsofrom a brand awareness standpoint. They've got
lots of members and they share aPeriwinkle's impact with those members. Yeah,
what's the best way to describe theorganization. I know that the Camp Yolo
You Only Live Once is kind ofthe trademark. Like when people know about
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the organization, they imagine a campwhere a bunch of kids are playing.
It's not just for the cancer patientsthough. They're able to bring a sibling
or even a friend or is itjust family related They're able to bring a
sibling. Yeah, So per Familystarted, we're celebrating its fortieth anniversary and
it started as a summer camp fortyyears ago and today Periwinkle provides a year
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round series of camps Camp Periwinkle CampYolo Family Camp for families who have children
who are newly diagnosed. We doa day camp in the city at Saint
Vince's De Paul Catholic Church. Andas the organization's evolved, it's not only
about the child, it's about theentire family. So we have the Periwinkle
Arts and Medicine Program at Texas Children'sHospital to where we work with local groups
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like Houston Symphony Riders in the schoolPurple Songs can Fly, and we bring
them into the hospital in patient andinto the clinic where they can do activities
with the kids while they're going throughtheir cancer treatment. And then, last
but not least, as we haveour Survivor program and it's a very impactful
program. I just this past weekgot to experience it. We did Camp
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Periwink, our week long summer camp, but we had close to thirty survivors
that were out at camp volunteering,So you can imagine the impact that makes
on the lives of the children thatare at camp. But to your point,
Laurent, Yes, Camp Perrywinkle andthe programs that we do are about
the entire family. So about twothirds of the campers of one hundred and
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forty campers were actually patients. Therest were siblings, you know, having
the survivors there, I mean therewas a due to COVID. You know,
we were virtual for a couple ofyears. We were black in person
with Camp Periwinkle last year and theneven back in more of effect this year.
And just to see all the survivorsthat I saw six or seven years
ago as campers, Eric Periwinkle backas survivors. It's just it's what it's
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about. It's life. Yeah.The I the aspect of supporting the family
as well is important because the evolutionof patient mental health as they go through
something traumatic like this is something thatis fairly well talked about these days.
And along with that evolution in ourthinking of the medical field, we've realized
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that we really need to provide mentalhealth help to the parents too and the
siblings. And again, Houston hasbeen on the forefront of these organizations and
these ideas because we have all thesevery very motivated people who are extremely intelligent.
It's not just about NASA, we'reSpace City, We're also the Bayou
City. We have all these allthese people that are interested in the environment.
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And then we have one of thebest medical centers in the world,
and let's talk a little bit aboutthat. You're listening to Houston, PA,
Houston's Public Affairs Show. My nameis Laurent and my guests are here
from the Periwinkle Foundation. They're onlineat Periwinkle Foundation dot org. Periwinkle Foundation
dot org. My guest are doctorPaul Gerson. He's the founder of the
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Periwinkle Foundation, and Doug Sugget istheir executive director. Doctor Gerson, you
used to be in the Air Force. Where did you serve? I was
drafted in the Air Force in nineteensixty six. At the completion of my
internship, every man that finished hisinternship in nineteen sixty six went on active
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duty because that was the largest draftof the Vietnam War. I served a
very tough duty at Coco Beach,Florida for two years. Good for you.
Yes, I did not go toVietnam, although I wanted to.
Really, yes I did. Ivolunteered to be a flight surgeon, which
means I would be the man takingcare of the flying person and I imagine
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that I would be in a helicopterpicking up wounded people from the battlefield.
Instead, I was sent to theCocoa Beach Florida, which is the air
base that supports the Cape Kennedy Andso I was actually in the space program
for two years. Cool at theend of the Gemini program and at the
start of the Apollo program. Didyou mean any of those people they were
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my patients? Oh, no,way, that's fantastic. Well, that's
a period of history that I happenedto like a lot. I was born
just after it, so we kindof missed it. In fact, I'm
the first part of the first generationwho knows what the planet looks like because
all my life I've been able tolook at a picture of the planet.
You, sir, were born ata time when the only representation of the
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planet you saw when you were achild was a drawing or some kind Just
those little things are kind of mindblowing. Let's move on, though.
You identified a need to help childrenwho were suffering from cancer because you're walking
down barren always with no possible wayof lifting your spirit, at least not
with your eyes. That occurred atthe end of my Air Force term,
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which was two years. I wentimmediately to MD Anderson Hospital for five years,
where I trained to be a radiologistslash neuro radiologist. And it was
during that time that I realized thatwe in the medical world were missing out
on something very important, which wasthe well being of our patients, especially
in a cancer hospital where the childrenall had cancer and virtually all of them
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died. I was there from sixtyeight to seventy two when the survival of
children with cancer was very, verylow. However, at that time,
whereas the survival of leukemia, whichis the most common cancer in children,
it was less than five percent.Today, the survival of children with leukemia
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is over. Isn't that wonderful?And so where did the first effective cancer
drug come from? The periwinkle plant? Imagine that a biochemist from Holland was
working in the Dutch East Indies lookingfor medicinal possibilities in the native plants.
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Many of our best drugs come fromplants aspirin digitalists. This man chose a
native plant called the periwinkle otherwise knownas Vinca v I nca, and he
extracted an alkaloid from it, whichultimately proved to be useful in the treatment
of leukemia. At the end ofWorld War two, he immigrated to America
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with all of his research, andhe didn't go back to the Netherlands because
his family had been wiped out inthe Holocaust. So he had his alkaloid
and they began to test on variousmouse and diseases, and they found that
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it actually had an effect on leukemiathat had never happened before. We should
precise that the leukemia is the cancerthat affects your blood, correct, So
the most common in malignancy in children. Yeah, I didn't know that that
was the most common by far.Two researchers, their names happened to be
emel Fry and emeal Fry Reich,Okay, and they were pediatric oncologists.
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They took a refined form of thealkaloid and took it back to Boston Children's
and using it in combination with othermedicines, found out that it was very
effective compared to other things in thetreatment of leukemia. Amazing. So,
in typical Houston fashion, emel Fryand emel Fry Reich were brought to MD
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Anderson from Texas Children's Hospital and theybecame part of the staff at MD Anderson.
They were having a big program thereand they brought the man who had
originally found this alkaloid and they toldhim that there was a doctor across the
street a Texas Children's hospital who hadan organization called Periwinkle and he wanted to
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meet that man who was me.We met together. His name was Kurt
Gerzon ger zo N. Mine isBELLR s o N. The world is
filled with a strange occurrence. Yes, So we met with one another and
had dinner that night and decided wewere probably related. And that's a true
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story. That's unbelievable. So youprobably have a biological connection to someone who
did something which inspired you and sentyou on your path. That's that's insane.
But we're talking about traveling across theworld here and then meeting again in
Houston. But hey, speaking ofHouston, the reason you were able to
create the Periwinkle Foundation is because youfound the generosity and the can do spirit
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that is lacking in most of theworld. That's impossibly lacking in most of
the world. I think as anative Houstonian that was bred into me.
My father was very active in thecommunity himself, and he inspired me.
If there is a mentor in mylife, it's my father, who was
very very involved in the city ofHouston in which he was born as well
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so it was a natural evolution inmy life to go into medicine to increase
my activity within the medical world,to do something outside the norms of what
a doctor does. So you alwayshave the ambition of finding a way to
make a mark, to improve theareas you were working in by addressing parts
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of it that weren't being properly addressed. That's possibly true. I don't think
of it as ambition, because Ithink the ambition is something that you're thinking
of yourself. I think of itas intention. I had the intention to
do something. I wasn't satisfied withthe situation that I saw in the hospitals
at the time and the treatment ofthe children and their families in the realm
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of cancer, and I felt thatwe the medical world, had a duty
to do something more than just treatand diagnose disease, but we had to
also enter into the well being part, the healing part of our world of
medicine. You are listening to Houston, PA Houston's Public Affairs Show. My
(14:35):
name is Laurent and my guests arehere from the Periwinkle Foundation. They're online
at Periwinkle Foundation dot org. PeriwinkleFoundation dot org. My guests are doctor
Paul Gerson. He is the founderof the Periwinkle Foundation. He's also an
Air Force veteran who was working withthe space program at Cape Canaveral or Unbelievable
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and Doug Si gets the executive director, Doug real quick, let's let's talk
about the Iron Sumlier event that ison November ninth. That's coming up.
The Iron Bartender event is on Septemberfourteenth, and then you'll also have on
October fourteenth, that's my father's birthday. By the way, there's the Kickball
Classic. Instead of a golf Classic, they do kickball, which I think
is a fantastic idea. I'm reallyreally interested in the Iron Samlia. That's
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how we met. Actually, youcame onto the show to talk about it.
It's such a great idea for afundraiser. It's a it's a it's
a party for grown up and you'resharing some of the best value humans produced,
which is the culinary arts. That'show I feel about it. So
it's this year. It's on Novemberninth, But you can just go to
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Perry Winkel Foundation dot org and justbuy a table, buy a ticket.
These make for really great gifts.By the way, if you're looking for
a birthday gift, for instance,but what's the what's the what's the sway?
Like, yeah, you don't,Iron Somalier. It's presented by our
friends Auto Saul's Houston's Premiere Wine event. We have some of the top psalms
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from the Houston area come together andthey pour three different wines that are just
truly amazing for you to taste andcompare and so forth, and we have
judges that I end up going aroundand rating and so forth the psalms and
we'll crown the Iron Palm of twentytwenty three. We have also the People's
Choice Awards. Everyone's got their favoritepsalms, so there are a number of
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different awards. But it's at thePostal Hotel, which nicely everyone. It
was our second year being at theevent, and this will be our second
year and we've got more space thisyear. But you walk in and it
is it's just truly amazing event andlots of great people there. Far great
cause, I mean, great wine, great food. It raises a lot
of money for the parraminical programs.Previous board member Joe Burke Offer, I
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think said it best that these kidsare pretty already paid a pretty steep price
for a mission for our programs,meaning their cancer diagnosis, and it's our
job and responsibility to make sure thatthey're free of charge from this day forward
and into the future. So IronPsalm is just that one event or the
city comes together people from all overthe city, psalms from all over the
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city, just to compete for thattitle. And it's a very special evening.
And hey, to be clear,if you're not familiar with sails and
wine tasting, these are not drunkevents. The tasting is done with small
quantities. Technically speaking, you spitout the wine after tasting it, maybe
eat a little piece of bread tocleanse your palate. That's how the French
do it. Personally, I don'tspit out wine. That's against my religion.
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But these are small quantities. Thisis not about getting drunk and ridiculous.
These are really nice parties. Butit is true that everybody's quite happy
there though, because because that's whatwine does to you, it makes us
happy exactly. So I guess we'llroam the room. The way that the
events set up is the fourteen competingpsalms. You'll go into a ballroom,
so you'll go around and have conversationswith the psalms that we'll usually pair some
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type of food or appetiser and soforth, or dessert with their wine,
and you really learn a lot aboutthe wine itself. And you know,
after competing and going around tasting inthe room for our underwriters if people consider
underwriting meaning buying a table, wedo a couple of private dinners as well
that each nice, so there's somethingfor everyone. It's a great corporate event.
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Fortunately we get a number of corporationsthat really rally around it. But
if you're into wine, it's it'sdefinitely the place to be. Also,
if you're just into helping people,it's the place to be. So if
you want take us to this,you want information about their other events,
go to Periwinkle Foundation dot org PeriwinkleFoundation dot org. You can also just
some me an email Texan from Franceat gmail dot com. Texan from France
(18:49):
at gmail dot com gives you allthe answer you need from me personally.
Uh, Doctor Gerson, you mentionedthat you are in the business of diagnosis
and cure and that you founded yournonprofit to take care of the third aspect
of medicine, which was overlooked atthe time that you decided to create the
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Periwinkle Foundation. Run us through thisconcept because I think that this is well,
we need to hear it, certainly. So I started medical school in
nineteen sixty one, that's the darkAges, and I was trained in the
usual way during that period of time. And then we skipped forward to nineteen
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sixty eight when I started my trainingat MD Anderson, and what I found
there was the treatments for children withcancer were not successful. That's just the
way it was. I could acceptthat, but I knew that in the
future we would get better at that. But what I couldn't stand, what
I couldn't tolerate, what I foundabominable, was the fact that there was
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nothing else for those two but diagnosisand treatment, and the treatments were sometimes
worse than the disease itself. Andall I could think was that we,
the medical world, must do betterthan this. We must be able to
provide something more than just the diagnosisand treatment. And I left to MD
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Anderson in nineteen sixty eight and wentdirectly to Texas Children's where pretty much the
environment was the same, and Inever lost the idea that we needed to
do more for these children than justwhat we were doing. And sure enough,
one day, I've heard about thefact that a camp for children with
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cancer, funded by Paul Newman,had been created, and I knew we
had to do that very thing.And I went directly to the director of
the Cancer Department and said, there'sa camp for children with cancer in New
York, and we're Texas. Wecan do better than them, and we
needed to do our own camp.And he said he was busy with the
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creation of the Ronald McDonald House.And I said, do you give me
permission to do that myself? CanI take volunteers from your staff and from
your patients and create a camp forchildren with cancer? And he said yes,
and so we did, and thatwas nineteen eighty three, and today,
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yes, it's twenty twenty forty yearslater. We started, of course,
like all things, you start small. Maybe that summer, the first
time we'd had a camp, Maybethere were thirty children there. And this
is the year we had I'll askdoctor mister de Sugget, how many children
were at the camp this year,the year that we were able to get
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back in business. Yeah, wetook about one hundred and forty children out
to camp this year. Right.We started small with thirty brave volunteers and
volunteer counselors, and now we've hadas many as one hundred and sixty.
I believe that camp peak time priorto COVID, we would take just almost
two hundred kids. We literally maxedout camp for all the facility that we
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use, and now we're working.I do anticipate that number getting closer to
two hundred again, but we workspecifically with our partner, Texas Children's Hospital
to make sure we're providing the safestenvironment. So kids are you know,
are vaccinated that come out to camp. But as hopefully COVID slows down and
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we learn to live with it intothe future, we'll be back up at
capacity really with Camp Perrywinkle and Campioloand all the camps that we do throughout
the year. Campiolo stands for youonly live once. I love I love
that name. Campiolo. Doctor Gerson, we have to describe this camp because
this is not a norm well,some parts of it are an ordinary camp.
It's about having fun, but it'sa you have a full medical facility
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ready to support these kids. Absolutely, and that's extraordinary, right that there's
a very well equipped medical facility atthis camp that we go to, and
there are doctors. They're all overthe place, but there are a couple
that are designated as the doctor,and these are doctors from the cancer center
at Texas Children's Hospital. So everybody'swell taken care of. Children get their
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chemo right there at the camp ifthey are on treatment, and if there's
any kind of problem, they immediatelyare seen in our medical facilities utterly as
safe as it can possibly be.But I think one of the things to
talk about is sort of the philosophyare the ambiance of what goes on there.
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I've always thought that happiness sounds likethe word happen, because it just
is spontaneous and it just happens,and that spontaneity that happiness is so pervasive.
You'd look around and you see childrenjust being children. Nobody is looking
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at somebody else that's saying, oh, that person has no hair, no,
because they've all experienced that. Soone of the things about the ambiance
is that these children are among childrenlike themselves, although they all have cancer
and they've all been treated in thesame place They don't really get to make
friends or see one another in therealm of Texas Children's Hospital in the clinic,
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or God forbid as in patience.But here they get to be together,
and here they get to find out, Yes, I don't like spinal
taps, how do you feel aboutthat? Those are the conversations I've actually
heard. As the children were leavingthe swimming pool, A counselor hold up
a leg procesis and say, whoseleg is this? How does that happen
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in the camp? Okay? Andnobody's embarrassed about that at all. It's
like a Coen Brothers movie exactly,the beauty of how complicated it all is
and how the human spirit will finda way to laugh at it, because
ultimately it's our pride. The wordthat you just didn't use is resilience.
How resilients these children are. They'vebeen through all kinds of things. I
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personally am a cancer survivor. Ipersonally have had chemotherapy at MD Anderson Hospital.
I know how it feels, andI love being with the children.
And I get into a conversation andthey're telling me about this, that and
the other thing about their treatment,and I say yeah, I really know
about that. And they say,how do you know you're a doctor,
and I say, yes, Iam a doctor, and I am a
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cancer survivor myself. It's so wonderful. I love being a cancer survivor with
those children. We have to mentionthat you were successful in creating the Periwinko
Foundation because you were able to findaccomplices, so to speak, who could
wrangle in their connections their friends andbring in the knowledge, but also the
money, because this is very,very, very expensive stuff that we're talking
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about, and it is unusual fora nonprofit to be as successful as yours.
It's unusual for a nonprofit to makeit to forty years and provide the
same services. You've actually just keptexpanding your services. You mentioned that you're
building a new camp. You're inthe middle of a capital campaign for a
new camp. Can we share thenumbers camp? Well, the goal in
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the capitol campaign to create the fullsecond camp, which is going to be
significantly larger than the current camp,then they will both stay open. The
goal for the capital campaign it's fiftymillion dollars and we are at about thirty
million right now. So in lessthan a year, you've raised thirty million
dollars to build a new camp.That's great, and this is mostly from
private people in corporations, so privateprimarily from foundations. And the wealth of
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the city of Houston built on theenergy businesses is indescribable. And there are
just dozens and dozens, maybe scoresof family foundations that have been created for
philanthropic purposes, and so Camp Campfor All does dips into that. The
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Periwinkle Foundation. Also, if youlook at the Texas Medical Center, those
family names are all over it.If you look at the entertainment venues in
Houston, those family names are allover that as well. These families who
achieved this incredible well through the energybusinesses that are the foundation of Houston have
(27:32):
been wonderful. But I must saythat at this point, the largest employer
in Houston is not the energy business. It's the Texas Medical Center, the
largest in the world. Yeah,and it's that's an achievement of its own,
I mean, but it was startedby the same people. A typical
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story of what Houston is like isthat Baylor Medical School is in the Texas
Medical Center. Baylor was a smallmedical school in Dallas. The movers and
Shakers of Houston went to the medicalschool in Dallas that said, I'll tell
you what, I'll give you apiece of land of medical center we're creating,
and we'll build you a building,and you'll move to Houston and you'll
(28:14):
be a medical school and a medicalcenter that we're going to create that will
be the largest in the world.And they did that. Heck, yes,
who would want to live in Dallas. I'm just kidding. I'm just
I like Dallas, Do I likeFort Worth? Two? There was there
was a can do spirit that belongsin Texas like nowhere else. And it
is obviously a product of the immigration, the absolute the constant influx of people
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from all around the world who comehere because they see America as what it
is, one of the last placeson the planet where you can fulfill a
promise to yourself, whether it's anambition or an intention, and you can
find like minded people who are goingto help you achieve your goal. And
we should be more proud of ourculture in Houston and of our town than
we are. And I think partof it is that most people just don't
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know about all this stuff. Alot of it is complicated. These you
know, We just spent thirty minutestalking about these issues. We've just barely
scratched the surface. But the abilityof Houstonians to field dozens of millions of
dollars to complete projects is just it. Boy, could we do something for
our schools? Anyway, Folks,if you have any questions related to Houston
(29:26):
public affairs, you can send mean email. Texan from France at gmail
dot com. I'm happy to sendyou the website to all the organizations I
have on the show. The PeriwinkleFoundation is at Periwinkle Foundation dot org.
Periwinkle Foundation dot org. The IronSumlier event is November ninth. Before that,
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on September fourteenth, they're doing theIron Bartender, and they're also doing
a Kickball Classic on October fourteenth,So there's a lot of stuff that there
is coming up. We mentioned thatthis is an opportunity to be part of
a philanthropy. It's also an opportunityto meet some really cool, like minded
people. So especially if you're newin town and you've got a new job
and you're trying to find out howyou're going to meet people who participate in
(30:11):
some of these events. It's absolutelya wonderful way to go, folks.
I want to thank you for listeningand caring about the issues I put on
this show. I'll be here nextweek at the same time. My name
is Laurent I am the Texan fromFrance and this has been Houston, PA,
Houston's public affairs show, Houston Strong
Welcome to Houston, PA, Houston'spublic Affairs show, an iHeart Media broadcast.
Our disclaimer says that the opinions expressedon this show do not necessarily reflect
those hell by this radio station,its management staff, or any of its
advertisers. My name is Laurent Iam the Texan from France, and we're
going to talk about eating and drinkingbecause in some places in the nonprofit world,
(00:31):
they know to raise money by organizingamazing events like the Iron Saumlier or
the Iron Bartender. If you recognizethose events, you know that my guests
are here from the Periwinkle Foundation.We are a city that is rich in
philanthropy in Houston. It is absolutelyincredible what nonprofits are capable are able to
(00:52):
do in this city because of thegenerosity of our citizens. Houstonians, especially
those who are born here, seemto be the ones who are the most
likely to be ignorant of this fact. It's maybe it's because as part of
their general horizon, but as aFrench guy, as I'm an expatriate technically
speaking, although depending on the politicalconversation, I might identify as an immigrant
(01:18):
because I can but one of thethings that we immigrants an expatriates notice is
the incredible can do generosity that Houstonian'sdisplay. It is not uncommon. In
fact, that happens all the timethat somebody will just have an idea to
start a nonprofit organization and they findthe millions of dollars that they actually needed
to build. They say, afully medicated camp for children. And that's
(01:38):
what the Periwinkle Foundation is known for. They're an organization that believes that children
fighting cancer should be able to goto camp, among the things that they
can do to raise their mental level, their optimism, and you know that
mental state that can be crashed byyour body. We talk a lot about
how mind over body the body affectsthe mind. A healthy body, healthy
(02:00):
mind and vice versa, and inmedicine we know that that is absolutely true
and that people who have a goodoutlook, who are optimistic or more optimistic,
people who can be taught to bemore optimistic about their condition are very
often the ones who convalesce the fastestand heal the fastest. To talk about
all these things, and even PaulNewman at some point I guarantee it I
(02:23):
have guests here from the Periwinko Foundation. Doctor Paul Gerson is the founder of
the Periwinkle Foundation. He was alsoin the Air Force before he did all
that, and with him as DougSuggett, he is the executive director of
Perry Winkle Foundation. Doug, welcomeback. I'm happy to see you again.
Every time you come here, wehave the opportunity to talk about wine.
(02:45):
Thank you very much for bringing oneof your bottles at the Ironsmlie event.
You're going to have this special winethat is made for you. There's
a winery that makes a charity wine. They basically create this wine every year
and they put a label in accordsto the organization they decide to support.
Tell us a little more about them. They deserve a shout out. Yeah,
(03:07):
it's our friends at the Nice Winery. They've been a tremendous partner of
the Periwinkle Foundation and each year forthe last eight years have created a bottle
of wine and it's the Periwinkal CharityWine. And what they do is they
pick a piece of art from makinga mark, which is part of the
programs that we do at to checkthe Children's hospital in which kids create art
(03:30):
and so forth while they're going throughtheir cancer treatment and the team at the
Nice Winery pick a piece of artout of hundreds of pieces of art and
it becomes the label on the bottleeach year and proceeds from the cell of
that wine help fund Periwinkle camps,arts and survivor programs. So we're very
grateful for the support of Nice Wineryand the impact that they make at Periwinkle
(03:52):
from a funding standpoint, but alsofrom a brand awareness standpoint. They've got
lots of members and they share aPeriwinkle's impact with those members. Yeah,
what's the best way to describe theorganization. I know that the Camp Yolo
You Only Live Once is kind ofthe trademark. Like when people know about
(04:13):
the organization, they imagine a campwhere a bunch of kids are playing.
It's not just for the cancer patientsthough. They're able to bring a sibling
or even a friend or is itjust family related They're able to bring a
sibling. Yeah, So per Familystarted, we're celebrating its fortieth anniversary and
it started as a summer camp fortyyears ago and today Periwinkle provides a year
(04:34):
round series of camps Camp Periwinkle CampYolo Family Camp for families who have children
who are newly diagnosed. We doa day camp in the city at Saint
Vince's De Paul Catholic Church. Andas the organization's evolved, it's not only
about the child, it's about theentire family. So we have the Periwinkle
Arts and Medicine Program at Texas Children'sHospital to where we work with local groups
(04:57):
like Houston Symphony Riders in the schoolPurple Songs can Fly, and we bring
them into the hospital in patient andinto the clinic where they can do activities
with the kids while they're going throughtheir cancer treatment. And then, last
but not least, as we haveour Survivor program and it's a very impactful
program. I just this past weekgot to experience it. We did Camp
(05:19):
Periwink, our week long summer camp, but we had close to thirty survivors
that were out at camp volunteering,So you can imagine the impact that makes
on the lives of the children thatare at camp. But to your point,
Laurent, Yes, Camp Perrywinkle andthe programs that we do are about
the entire family. So about twothirds of the campers of one hundred and
(05:41):
forty campers were actually patients. Therest were siblings, you know, having
the survivors there, I mean therewas a due to COVID. You know,
we were virtual for a couple ofyears. We were black in person
with Camp Periwinkle last year and theneven back in more of effect this year.
And just to see all the survivorsthat I saw six or seven years
ago as campers, Eric Periwinkle backas survivors. It's just it's what it's
(06:04):
about. It's life. Yeah.The I the aspect of supporting the family
as well is important because the evolutionof patient mental health as they go through
something traumatic like this is something thatis fairly well talked about these days.
And along with that evolution in ourthinking of the medical field, we've realized
(06:29):
that we really need to provide mentalhealth help to the parents too and the
siblings. And again, Houston hasbeen on the forefront of these organizations and
these ideas because we have all thesevery very motivated people who are extremely intelligent.
It's not just about NASA, we'reSpace City, We're also the Bayou
City. We have all these allthese people that are interested in the environment.
(06:53):
And then we have one of thebest medical centers in the world,
and let's talk a little bit aboutthat. You're listening to Houston, PA,
Houston's Public Affairs Show. My nameis Laurent and my guests are here
from the Periwinkle Foundation. They're onlineat Periwinkle Foundation dot org. Periwinkle Foundation
dot org. My guest are doctorPaul Gerson. He's the founder of the
(07:14):
Periwinkle Foundation, and Doug Sugget istheir executive director. Doctor Gerson, you
used to be in the Air Force. Where did you serve? I was
drafted in the Air Force in nineteensixty six. At the completion of my
internship, every man that finished hisinternship in nineteen sixty six went on active
(07:36):
duty because that was the largest draftof the Vietnam War. I served a
very tough duty at Coco Beach,Florida for two years. Good for you.
Yes, I did not go toVietnam, although I wanted to.
Really, yes I did. Ivolunteered to be a flight surgeon, which
means I would be the man takingcare of the flying person and I imagine
(08:01):
that I would be in a helicopterpicking up wounded people from the battlefield.
Instead, I was sent to theCocoa Beach Florida, which is the air
base that supports the Cape Kennedy Andso I was actually in the space program
for two years. Cool at theend of the Gemini program and at the
start of the Apollo program. Didyou mean any of those people they were
(08:22):
my patients? Oh, no,way, that's fantastic. Well, that's
a period of history that I happenedto like a lot. I was born
just after it, so we kindof missed it. In fact, I'm
the first part of the first generationwho knows what the planet looks like because
all my life I've been able tolook at a picture of the planet.
You, sir, were born ata time when the only representation of the
(08:45):
planet you saw when you were achild was a drawing or some kind Just
those little things are kind of mindblowing. Let's move on, though.
You identified a need to help childrenwho were suffering from cancer because you're walking
down barren always with no possible wayof lifting your spirit, at least not
with your eyes. That occurred atthe end of my Air Force term,
(09:11):
which was two years. I wentimmediately to MD Anderson Hospital for five years,
where I trained to be a radiologistslash neuro radiologist. And it was
during that time that I realized thatwe in the medical world were missing out
on something very important, which wasthe well being of our patients, especially
in a cancer hospital where the childrenall had cancer and virtually all of them
(09:37):
died. I was there from sixtyeight to seventy two when the survival of
children with cancer was very, verylow. However, at that time,
whereas the survival of leukemia, whichis the most common cancer in children,
it was less than five percent.Today, the survival of children with leukemia
(09:58):
is over. Isn't that wonderful?And so where did the first effective cancer
drug come from? The periwinkle plant? Imagine that a biochemist from Holland was
working in the Dutch East Indies lookingfor medicinal possibilities in the native plants.
(10:20):
Many of our best drugs come fromplants aspirin digitalists. This man chose a
native plant called the periwinkle otherwise knownas Vinca v I nca, and he
extracted an alkaloid from it, whichultimately proved to be useful in the treatment
of leukemia. At the end ofWorld War two, he immigrated to America
(10:43):
with all of his research, andhe didn't go back to the Netherlands because
his family had been wiped out inthe Holocaust. So he had his alkaloid
and they began to test on variousmouse and diseases, and they found that
(11:03):
it actually had an effect on leukemiathat had never happened before. We should
precise that the leukemia is the cancerthat affects your blood, correct, So
the most common in malignancy in children. Yeah, I didn't know that that
was the most common by far.Two researchers, their names happened to be
emel Fry and emeal Fry Reich,Okay, and they were pediatric oncologists.
(11:26):
They took a refined form of thealkaloid and took it back to Boston Children's
and using it in combination with othermedicines, found out that it was very
effective compared to other things in thetreatment of leukemia. Amazing. So,
in typical Houston fashion, emel Fryand emel Fry Reich were brought to MD
(11:52):
Anderson from Texas Children's Hospital and theybecame part of the staff at MD Anderson.
They were having a big program thereand they brought the man who had
originally found this alkaloid and they toldhim that there was a doctor across the
street a Texas Children's hospital who hadan organization called Periwinkle and he wanted to
(12:13):
meet that man who was me.We met together. His name was Kurt
Gerzon ger zo N. Mine isBELLR s o N. The world is
filled with a strange occurrence. Yes, So we met with one another and
had dinner that night and decided wewere probably related. And that's a true
(12:35):
story. That's unbelievable. So youprobably have a biological connection to someone who
did something which inspired you and sentyou on your path. That's that's insane.
But we're talking about traveling across theworld here and then meeting again in
Houston. But hey, speaking ofHouston, the reason you were able to
create the Periwinkle Foundation is because youfound the generosity and the can do spirit
(13:00):
that is lacking in most of theworld. That's impossibly lacking in most of
the world. I think as anative Houstonian that was bred into me.
My father was very active in thecommunity himself, and he inspired me.
If there is a mentor in mylife, it's my father, who was
very very involved in the city ofHouston in which he was born as well
(13:26):
so it was a natural evolution inmy life to go into medicine to increase
my activity within the medical world,to do something outside the norms of what
a doctor does. So you alwayshave the ambition of finding a way to
make a mark, to improve theareas you were working in by addressing parts
(13:50):
of it that weren't being properly addressed. That's possibly true. I don't think
of it as ambition, because Ithink the ambition is something that you're thinking
of yourself. I think of itas intention. I had the intention to
do something. I wasn't satisfied withthe situation that I saw in the hospitals
at the time and the treatment ofthe children and their families in the realm
(14:15):
of cancer, and I felt thatwe the medical world, had a duty
to do something more than just treatand diagnose disease, but we had to
also enter into the well being part, the healing part of our world of
medicine. You are listening to Houston, PA Houston's Public Affairs Show. My
(14:35):
name is Laurent and my guests arehere from the Periwinkle Foundation. They're online
at Periwinkle Foundation dot org. PeriwinkleFoundation dot org. My guests are doctor
Paul Gerson. He is the founderof the Periwinkle Foundation. He's also an
Air Force veteran who was working withthe space program at Cape Canaveral or Unbelievable
(14:58):
and Doug Si gets the executive director, Doug real quick, let's let's talk
about the Iron Sumlier event that ison November ninth. That's coming up.
The Iron Bartender event is on Septemberfourteenth, and then you'll also have on
October fourteenth, that's my father's birthday. By the way, there's the Kickball
Classic. Instead of a golf Classic, they do kickball, which I think
is a fantastic idea. I'm reallyreally interested in the Iron Samlia. That's
(15:22):
how we met. Actually, youcame onto the show to talk about it.
It's such a great idea for afundraiser. It's a it's a it's
a party for grown up and you'resharing some of the best value humans produced,
which is the culinary arts. That'show I feel about it. So
it's this year. It's on Novemberninth, But you can just go to
(15:43):
Perry Winkel Foundation dot org and justbuy a table, buy a ticket.
These make for really great gifts.By the way, if you're looking for
a birthday gift, for instance,but what's the what's the what's the sway?
Like, yeah, you don't,Iron Somalier. It's presented by our
friends Auto Saul's Houston's Premiere Wine event. We have some of the top psalms
(16:06):
from the Houston area come together andthey pour three different wines that are just
truly amazing for you to taste andcompare and so forth, and we have
judges that I end up going aroundand rating and so forth the psalms and
we'll crown the Iron Palm of twentytwenty three. We have also the People's
Choice Awards. Everyone's got their favoritepsalms, so there are a number of
(16:29):
different awards. But it's at thePostal Hotel, which nicely everyone. It
was our second year being at theevent, and this will be our second
year and we've got more space thisyear. But you walk in and it
is it's just truly amazing event andlots of great people there. Far great
cause, I mean, great wine, great food. It raises a lot
of money for the parraminical programs.Previous board member Joe Burke Offer, I
(16:52):
think said it best that these kidsare pretty already paid a pretty steep price
for a mission for our programs,meaning their cancer diagnosis, and it's our
job and responsibility to make sure thatthey're free of charge from this day forward
and into the future. So IronPsalm is just that one event or the
city comes together people from all overthe city, psalms from all over the
(17:17):
city, just to compete for thattitle. And it's a very special evening.
And hey, to be clear,if you're not familiar with sails and
wine tasting, these are not drunkevents. The tasting is done with small
quantities. Technically speaking, you spitout the wine after tasting it, maybe
eat a little piece of bread tocleanse your palate. That's how the French
do it. Personally, I don'tspit out wine. That's against my religion.
(17:41):
But these are small quantities. Thisis not about getting drunk and ridiculous.
These are really nice parties. Butit is true that everybody's quite happy
there though, because because that's whatwine does to you, it makes us
happy exactly. So I guess we'llroam the room. The way that the
events set up is the fourteen competingpsalms. You'll go into a ballroom,
so you'll go around and have conversationswith the psalms that we'll usually pair some
(18:04):
type of food or appetiser and soforth, or dessert with their wine,
and you really learn a lot aboutthe wine itself. And you know,
after competing and going around tasting inthe room for our underwriters if people consider
underwriting meaning buying a table, wedo a couple of private dinners as well
that each nice, so there's somethingfor everyone. It's a great corporate event.
(18:27):
Fortunately we get a number of corporationsthat really rally around it. But
if you're into wine, it's it'sdefinitely the place to be. Also,
if you're just into helping people,it's the place to be. So if
you want take us to this,you want information about their other events,
go to Periwinkle Foundation dot org PeriwinkleFoundation dot org. You can also just
some me an email Texan from Franceat gmail dot com. Texan from France
(18:49):
at gmail dot com gives you allthe answer you need from me personally.
Uh, Doctor Gerson, you mentionedthat you are in the business of diagnosis
and cure and that you founded yournonprofit to take care of the third aspect
of medicine, which was overlooked atthe time that you decided to create the
(19:11):
Periwinkle Foundation. Run us through thisconcept because I think that this is well,
we need to hear it, certainly. So I started medical school in
nineteen sixty one, that's the darkAges, and I was trained in the
usual way during that period of time. And then we skipped forward to nineteen
(19:32):
sixty eight when I started my trainingat MD Anderson, and what I found
there was the treatments for children withcancer were not successful. That's just the
way it was. I could acceptthat, but I knew that in the
future we would get better at that. But what I couldn't stand, what
I couldn't tolerate, what I foundabominable, was the fact that there was
(19:57):
nothing else for those two but diagnosisand treatment, and the treatments were sometimes
worse than the disease itself. Andall I could think was that we,
the medical world, must do betterthan this. We must be able to
provide something more than just the diagnosisand treatment. And I left to MD
(20:18):
Anderson in nineteen sixty eight and wentdirectly to Texas Children's where pretty much the
environment was the same, and Inever lost the idea that we needed to
do more for these children than justwhat we were doing. And sure enough,
one day, I've heard about thefact that a camp for children with
(20:38):
cancer, funded by Paul Newman,had been created, and I knew we
had to do that very thing.And I went directly to the director of
the Cancer Department and said, there'sa camp for children with cancer in New
York, and we're Texas. Wecan do better than them, and we
needed to do our own camp.And he said he was busy with the
(21:00):
creation of the Ronald McDonald House.And I said, do you give me
permission to do that myself? CanI take volunteers from your staff and from
your patients and create a camp forchildren with cancer? And he said yes,
and so we did, and thatwas nineteen eighty three, and today,
(21:22):
yes, it's twenty twenty forty yearslater. We started, of course,
like all things, you start small. Maybe that summer, the first
time we'd had a camp, Maybethere were thirty children there. And this
is the year we had I'll askdoctor mister de Sugget, how many children
were at the camp this year,the year that we were able to get
(21:44):
back in business. Yeah, wetook about one hundred and forty children out
to camp this year. Right.We started small with thirty brave volunteers and
volunteer counselors, and now we've hadas many as one hundred and sixty.
I believe that camp peak time priorto COVID, we would take just almost
two hundred kids. We literally maxedout camp for all the facility that we
(22:08):
use, and now we're working.I do anticipate that number getting closer to
two hundred again, but we workspecifically with our partner, Texas Children's Hospital
to make sure we're providing the safestenvironment. So kids are you know,
are vaccinated that come out to camp. But as hopefully COVID slows down and
(22:29):
we learn to live with it intothe future, we'll be back up at
capacity really with Camp Perrywinkle and Campioloand all the camps that we do throughout
the year. Campiolo stands for youonly live once. I love I love
that name. Campiolo. Doctor Gerson, we have to describe this camp because
this is not a norm well,some parts of it are an ordinary camp.
It's about having fun, but it'sa you have a full medical facility
(22:52):
ready to support these kids. Absolutely, and that's extraordinary, right that there's
a very well equipped medical facility atthis camp that we go to, and
there are doctors. They're all overthe place, but there are a couple
that are designated as the doctor,and these are doctors from the cancer center
at Texas Children's Hospital. So everybody'swell taken care of. Children get their
(23:18):
chemo right there at the camp ifthey are on treatment, and if there's
any kind of problem, they immediatelyare seen in our medical facilities utterly as
safe as it can possibly be.But I think one of the things to
talk about is sort of the philosophyare the ambiance of what goes on there.
(23:41):
I've always thought that happiness sounds likethe word happen, because it just
is spontaneous and it just happens,and that spontaneity that happiness is so pervasive.
You'd look around and you see childrenjust being children. Nobody is looking
(24:03):
at somebody else that's saying, oh, that person has no hair, no,
because they've all experienced that. Soone of the things about the ambiance
is that these children are among childrenlike themselves, although they all have cancer
and they've all been treated in thesame place They don't really get to make
friends or see one another in therealm of Texas Children's Hospital in the clinic,
(24:26):
or God forbid as in patience.But here they get to be together,
and here they get to find out, Yes, I don't like spinal
taps, how do you feel aboutthat? Those are the conversations I've actually
heard. As the children were leavingthe swimming pool, A counselor hold up
a leg procesis and say, whoseleg is this? How does that happen
(24:48):
in the camp? Okay? Andnobody's embarrassed about that at all. It's
like a Coen Brothers movie exactly,the beauty of how complicated it all is
and how the human spirit will finda way to laugh at it, because
ultimately it's our pride. The wordthat you just didn't use is resilience.
How resilients these children are. They'vebeen through all kinds of things. I
(25:11):
personally am a cancer survivor. Ipersonally have had chemotherapy at MD Anderson Hospital.
I know how it feels, andI love being with the children.
And I get into a conversation andthey're telling me about this, that and
the other thing about their treatment,and I say yeah, I really know
about that. And they say,how do you know you're a doctor,
and I say, yes, Iam a doctor, and I am a
(25:33):
cancer survivor myself. It's so wonderful. I love being a cancer survivor with
those children. We have to mentionthat you were successful in creating the Periwinko
Foundation because you were able to findaccomplices, so to speak, who could
wrangle in their connections their friends andbring in the knowledge, but also the
money, because this is very,very, very expensive stuff that we're talking
(25:57):
about, and it is unusual fora nonprofit to be as successful as yours.
It's unusual for a nonprofit to makeit to forty years and provide the
same services. You've actually just keptexpanding your services. You mentioned that you're
building a new camp. You're inthe middle of a capital campaign for a
new camp. Can we share thenumbers camp? Well, the goal in
(26:18):
the capitol campaign to create the fullsecond camp, which is going to be
significantly larger than the current camp,then they will both stay open. The
goal for the capital campaign it's fiftymillion dollars and we are at about thirty
million right now. So in lessthan a year, you've raised thirty million
dollars to build a new camp.That's great, and this is mostly from
private people in corporations, so privateprimarily from foundations. And the wealth of
(26:45):
the city of Houston built on theenergy businesses is indescribable. And there are
just dozens and dozens, maybe scoresof family foundations that have been created for
philanthropic purposes, and so Camp Campfor All does dips into that. The
(27:08):
Periwinkle Foundation. Also, if youlook at the Texas Medical Center, those
family names are all over it.If you look at the entertainment venues in
Houston, those family names are allover that as well. These families who
achieved this incredible well through the energybusinesses that are the foundation of Houston have
(27:32):
been wonderful. But I must saythat at this point, the largest employer
in Houston is not the energy business. It's the Texas Medical Center, the
largest in the world. Yeah,and it's that's an achievement of its own,
I mean, but it was startedby the same people. A typical
(27:52):
story of what Houston is like isthat Baylor Medical School is in the Texas
Medical Center. Baylor was a smallmedical school in Dallas. The movers and
Shakers of Houston went to the medicalschool in Dallas that said, I'll tell
you what, I'll give you apiece of land of medical center we're creating,
and we'll build you a building,and you'll move to Houston and you'll
(28:14):
be a medical school and a medicalcenter that we're going to create that will
be the largest in the world.And they did that. Heck, yes,
who would want to live in Dallas. I'm just kidding. I'm just
I like Dallas, Do I likeFort Worth? Two? There was there
was a can do spirit that belongsin Texas like nowhere else. And it
is obviously a product of the immigration, the absolute the constant influx of people
(28:37):
from all around the world who comehere because they see America as what it
is, one of the last placeson the planet where you can fulfill a
promise to yourself, whether it's anambition or an intention, and you can
find like minded people who are goingto help you achieve your goal. And
we should be more proud of ourculture in Houston and of our town than
we are. And I think partof it is that most people just don't
(29:00):
know about all this stuff. Alot of it is complicated. These you
know, We just spent thirty minutestalking about these issues. We've just barely
scratched the surface. But the abilityof Houstonians to field dozens of millions of
dollars to complete projects is just it. Boy, could we do something for
our schools? Anyway, Folks,if you have any questions related to Houston
(29:26):
public affairs, you can send mean email. Texan from France at gmail
dot com. I'm happy to sendyou the website to all the organizations I
have on the show. The PeriwinkleFoundation is at Periwinkle Foundation dot org.
Periwinkle Foundation dot org. The IronSumlier event is November ninth. Before that,
(29:48):
on September fourteenth, they're doing theIron Bartender, and they're also doing
a Kickball Classic on October fourteenth,So there's a lot of stuff that there
is coming up. We mentioned thatthis is an opportunity to be part of
a philanthropy. It's also an opportunityto meet some really cool, like minded
people. So especially if you're newin town and you've got a new job
and you're trying to find out howyou're going to meet people who participate in
(30:11):
some of these events. It's absolutelya wonderful way to go, folks.
I want to thank you for listeningand caring about the issues I put on
this show. I'll be here nextweek at the same time. My name
is Laurent I am the Texan fromFrance and this has been Houston, PA,
Houston's public affairs show, Houston Strong
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