Choose the type of help you need
Financial Support
Educational Support
Community of Support
The DLF wants to recognize and support local organizations who provide amazing programs and services to cancer patients.
Thrive to Survive
The mission of Thrive to Survive is to provide emotional, physical and financial support to adults living in Ontario, Seneca, Wayne, Schuyler and Yates counties diagnosed and being treated for any form of cancer. Through this support, Thrive to Survive hopes to relieve unnecessary stress on the patient allowing them to focus on their recovery and their families. Thrive to Survive founders learned about the difficulties of facing a cancer diagnosis through our loved ones. Receiving a cancer diagnosis impacts every aspect of a person’s life and no one is ever prepared. Thrive to Survive understands the inadequacies of available services to assist adults with cancer and we hope to alleviate some of the stress through our programs and services.
Thrive to Survive Executive Director Pam Venuti and DLF Board Member Brian Kinel.
★ Our Purpose ★
The Mission of The Don Litzelman Foundation
The Don Litzelman Foundation is a critical resource and sense of relief and calm to families and friends that have been hit with the awful news their loved one has been diagnosed with cancer. The DLF exists to help people find strength and comfort so they can best support their loved one through cancer and achieve the best possible outcome.
★ Our Story ★
About the Don Litzelman Foundation
The DLF began in the fall of 2012 to honor and remember Don, who was taken from us by brain cancer at the age of 52. Most of us involved in the DLF met in the fall of 1978 at the State University of New York at Geneseo. Some of our best memories involved us sitting on the hill together overlooking the lacrosse field, watching Don set most of the school’s scoring records. He was the first two-time All-American at Geneseo and in 1990 was inducted into the Geneseo Athletic Hall of Fame.
But as often happens, after graduation comes careers and families and we lost touch. Don brought us back together years later. In 2007 he reached out to reconnect. He hadn’t yet been diagnosed with brain cancer, but he knew something was wrong. We stayed in close touch until the spring of 2012, when Don was quickly declining. Four of us went to spend the day with him on May 5th. It was both a heartbreaking and uplifting day. A lot of tears and a lot of I love you’s. We drove away from his house determined to turn this horrible negative into a positive.