Bonnie Pfeifer Evans has made a gift of $100,000 through The Charles Evans Foundation to support breast cancer research at Winship Cancer Institute of Emory University. 

Pfeifer Evans is a trustee of The Charles Evans Foundation, which was founded by her late husband to support humanitarian causes, including health care. The gift will create the Charles Evans Endowment to support the Glenn Family Breast Program at Winship Cancer Institute, Georgia’s only National Cancer Institute-designated cancer center. 

The gift, made in memory of her late husband, honors Pfeifer Evans’s mother, who twice battled breast cancer.  Margaret Elizabeth Pfeifer was a native of Maryland who retired to Peachtree City, Ga. She overcame breast cancer once but succumbed to the disease in December 1999 after it metastasized. Pfeifer Evans’s father, Duane Pfeifer, died in April 2003 of stroke complications after battling heart disease for more than 10 years. He received one of Emory’s first quintuple bypasses in the early 1990s. 

“We spent a lot of time in Emory hospitals. I am very interested in the research that is being done,” Pfeifer Evans says. “I believe in trying to help out the people who helped our family. I would like to think that if it happened today, my mother would have survived because of the kind of research that is being done at Winship. Who knows what will happen in the next 10 years?”

More than 900 cancer patients are treated annually through the Glenn Family Breast Program at Winship. The multidisciplinary program brings together a team of experts in medical, surgical, and radiation oncology; plastic surgery; radiology; and pathology to work closely with patients and their families to make the best decisions for individualized care. 

“Philanthropic support is a crucial part of Winship’s efforts to find improved ways to prevent, diagnose and treat breast cancer,” said Dr. Walter J. Curran Jr., executive director of Winship Cancer Institute. “The gift from Mrs. Evans is a special contribution to our groundbreaking research and its translation into the most advanced patient care. We are grateful for Mrs. Evans’ generosity, and we are touched by the opportunity to memorialize her late husband and to honor her mother through use of these funds.” 

Winship Cancer Institute of Emory University is Georgia’s only cancer treatment center designated by the National Cancer Institute as an NCI cancer treatment center. Winship also is the only cancer treatment center in the state to be ranked among the top 100 hospitals for cancer treatment in the United States; Winship is ranked 39th.