Huntcliff Summit Raises Research Money for Emory
Residents and staff of the senior living center raised nearly $4,000 for Emory’s Winship Cancer Institute to honor a longtime friend and employee.
About 3,000 supporters of cancer research at Emory University’s Winship Cancer Institute showed up Saturday, Oct. 7, for the institute’s 5K run and walk. The fundraising event, which is in its 13th year, exceeded its goal of raising a million dollars for the nationally ranked research and treatment center.
Among those who participated in the event was a team of about a dozen staffers and friends at Sunrise at Huntcliff Summit, a senior independent living community in Sandy Springs. They were there to support the former director of sales at the facility, Bob Brenner, who seemingly without warning was forced to step down earlier this year when he was diagnosed with brain cancer. It’s been more than six months since the 61-year-old Brenner first began treatment at the Winship Center and at Duke University, but he’s made steady progress in his recovery.
With his wife, Dara, by his side and with the help of his team members from Huntcliff Summit, he was able to walk the entire three-mile course of the Winship 5K. At the finish line he was still standing, even though a number of his fellow team members were challenged by the ups and downs of the hilly terrain of the Emory University campus off Clifton Road.
The fact that he was physically able to complete the demanding course was a testament to the dedication of his co-workers at the Sandy Springs senior facility. That kind of support for her husband has meant the world to Dara Brenner.
“It was amazing. His friends from the Huntcliff staff are such a huge part of his life. He’s worked with them for over 19 years, and he considers them family and they consider him family.”
Planning for the big day started several months ago with a breakfast event to acquaint the business community in Sandy Springs and to alert the seniors that they, too, could participate by making a donation to the fundraiser. More than a dozen residents signed up for a symbolic walk last Friday around the circular drive in front of the facility to honor Brenner.
He had helped many of them through the difficult first months starting their lives anew in a community that was often much different from the one in which they had lived for so many years. Because he is Jewish, he had no difficulty introducing the new Jewish residents to the full schedule of weekly Friday night worship services, holiday celebrations and Torah study that the facility offered.
Residents led by Doreen Jacobs, a regular at Shabbat services, helped coordinate the giving for Brenner. Last week, the residents raised $1,300 in contributions and the staff and business community gave another $2,500 for the Winship event.
It’s all part of what Huntcliff Summit’s activities director Frankie Groh describes the facility’s philosophy of living with purpose that guides her work every day.
“When you walk through the door, I feel a connection to the staff, a connection to the residents. It’s like a family. Which is what one of my friends said during the Winship walk, you all behave more like family than colleagues. I’ve never seen that in a workplace.”
Not only has Brenner been inspired by the support of his co-workers, but he has benefitted from the advances in treatment that are being pioneered in Winship’s new 17-story treatment center that opened earlier this year in Midtown.
The executive director of the new center, Dr. Suresh Ramalingam, told the AJT earlier this year that because of new advances, patients can often expect to live longer and have more productive lives than they might have had even five or ten years ago.
“We’re in an exciting new era of cancer care and research,” Dr Ramalingam said. “We’ve come a long way from the time people felt such fear when they heard the word ‘cancer.’”
After a recent medical appointment, Brenner told his wife that he felt that, with continued progress, he might go back to work. He even has begun showing up occasionally at his old office at Huntcliff to greet the residents. He points to the fact that Jimmy Carter is still living several years after a brain cancer diagnosis that many thought would quickly end his life.
Bob Brenner’s father survived a case of esophageal cancer and lived another 25 years before he died of old age. It has all given Dara Brenner hope, too.
“A year and a half ago, before this hit, he ran the Boston Marathon and before that the Peachtree race in Atlanta. And so, you know, if you can run the Boston Marathon not that long ago, this journey might just be another easy long-distance run.”
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