Tuesday, May 18, 2010
CHARLOTTE, NC – Cary Fishburne, M.D., recently took home top honors at The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society Western North Carolina chapter’s annual Charlotte Man and Woman of the Year celebration. The event and the campaign’s twelve candidates, including Fishburne, collectively raised more than $210,000 for the Western North Carolina chapter of The Leukemia and Lymphoma Society (LLS).
The Charlotte Man and Woman of the Year campaign is a ten-week competition to raise funds for LLS to put toward blood cancer cures, research, patient services, and family support. Every dollar raised by a candidate counts as one “vote,” and the individual male and female candidates with the most “votes” are honored with the titles.
Cary Fishburne, MD, the 2010 Charlotte Man of the Year, earned $52,830 toward the campaign. A veteran OB/GYN physician with the Bradford Clinic in Charlotte, Dr. Fishburne lists his wife, Gina, and his two sons among his biggest accomplishments. When asked about his participation in the 2010 Charlotte Man & Woman of the Year campaign for LLS, Dr. Fishburne said, “The campaign has led me to realize how many people are affected by blood cancers, how much progress has been made, and how much further there is to go.”
Together, Dr. Fishburne and Woman of the Year, Martha Whitecotton, earned nearly half of the campaign’s total funds raised and set personal bests for both Man and Woman of the Year candidates in recent LLS chapter history. Because they both exceeded the $50,000 fundraising mark, they will each have an LLS-funded researcher named after them in honor of their extraordinary efforts.
“Thanks to their hard work and the generosity of their supporters, all our candidates have helped make a difference in the lives of those facing blood cancers,” said Kristen Mihaljevic, Man & Woman of the Year coordinator for The Leukemia and Lymphoma Society’s Western North Carolina chapter. “We offer sincere congratulations to Cary and Martha for their well-deserved recognition.”
This year’s campaign also paid tribute to the 2010 Charlotte Boy & Girl of the Year, five-year-old Landon Pertuset and four-year-old Lindsay Templeton. Both Landon and Lindsay are local blood cancer patients – two of the more than 825,000 patients in the U.S. currently battling these diseases.
