CBCF tries to meet fundraising challenge

MOSES LAKE — The Columbia Basin Cancer Foundation is working to meet a challenge by the end of July. And if it’s successful, the foundation will have money needed to build a radiation treatment center for cancer patients in Moses Lake.

Columbia Basin Cancer Foundation Director Angle Ledesma said the goal is to raise $250,000 by July 31. If it does, there’s an anonymous donor willing to match it.

It would be the final step in a fundraising campaign that started with the goal of raising $3.5 million locally for a radiation treatment center.

As of July 1, that goal was pretty close.

“We’re just over $3 million,” Ledesma said. “Basically, we have $500,000 left.”

And that was when the person Ledesma called “the challenge mystery donor” came up with a proposal.

“This person stepped in and said, ‘Let’s get this done. We want to get this radiation thing built. Let’s do it already. The community needs it. If you can get the community to raise $250,000 (by July 31), I will make up the other $250,000,’” Ledesma said.

“I think it is very doable,” she said.

The foundation has been working with the Confluence Health Foundation on the fundraising drive.

“There are four partners: Confluence Health, Confluence Health Foundation, Wenatchee Valley Medical Group. Those are doctors contracted (to provide care) and Columbia Basin Cancer Foundation,” she said.

Total project cost is projected at about $7 million. If $3.5 million can be raised by the cancer foundation and the Confluence foundation, Confluence Health will match it with $3.5 million.

The center would provide radiation treatment only, and would be located at the Confluence Health-Moses Lake Clinic facility at 940 E. Hill Ave. Any patient with cancer could get treatment.

“We are hoping to get it done by the end of July for it to be matched and for us to finish this up,” Ledesma said.

The foundation has been raising money for more than two years, but the campaign was slowed down by the COVID-19 pandemic.

“This community has been so gracious, and the benefit to our neighbors with cancer is so great in this project that I think there are so many people that stepped up,” Ledesma said.

“It (the radiation center) is needed right now,” she said.

Links to donate online are available on the cancer foundation website, www.http://www.columbiabasincancerfoundation.org/, or on the cancer foundation’s social media page. Donations should be designated for the radiation center. Arrangements for donations also can be made by calling the cancer foundation office, 509-764-4644, Monday through Thursday.