Cancer Alliance of Help & Hope emerged to combat the severe financial devastation that cancer diagnoses inflict on Palm Beach County residents. Patients often faced an impossible choice between paying for life-saving medical treatments and pain relief or feeding and sheltering their families.
Charles Fischer, Jr.
Greta Jean Fischer
Stanton Collemer
Founders Charles Fischer, Jr., a local banker, and his wife Greta Jean Fischer, a radiation therapy center administrator, witnessed this suffering firsthand. Families undergoing chemotherapy or radiation were losing homes, facing utility shut offs, going hungry, or having vehicles repossessed, threatening them with immediate homelessness and overwhelming despair. Realizing that existing groups focused primarily on research rather than basic living needs, Charles and Jean took action by teaming up with friends to meet these urgent, real-time demands in 2003.
In 2016, the nonprofit entered a new era when Stanton Collemer became the CEO. Within a year, he transitioned the small grassroots group into a mainstream agency, ultimately scaling the organization’s budget from $250,000 to $4 million over a ten-year span. Among his major contributions, he launched highly successful signature fundraising events, including the popular Shop the Day Away Luncheon and the original Dance the Night Away Gala. Today, this dedicated organization serves more than 1,400 clients and family members every year, disbursing direct financial assistance to local cancer patients experiencing extraordinary need to ensure their essential everyday bills are covered during active treatment.