>newground
Generosity like Melvin and Bren Simon’s changes our world.
Their recent gift of $50 million to the Indiana University Cancer Center will help transform how we treat and prevent this deadly disease. "This new gift will accelerate research and save lives," beams Indiana University Foundation President Curt Simic. "Melvin and Bren Simon are making it possible for cancer patients from Indiana and around the world to find the care they need at the IU Cancer Center."
A portion of the Simons gift will further the fight against cancer through the creation of the Joshua Max Simon Research Endowment, named after the Simon’s late son. Through the endowment, the center will increase the number of patient beds and attract top cancer researchers for years to come.
The Simons' generosity augments an already impressive center, renowned as a National Cancer Institute. The center is credited with such breakthroughs as a cure for testicular cancer and innovative radiation therapy techniques. Now, it will bear the names of its most recent benefactors, Melvin and Bren.
Instances of the Simon family’s generosity have long provided other marvelous possibilities at IU. We can, for example, listen to the sounds of a Viola da Gamba in the Bess Meshulam Simon Music Library and Recital Center. We can see the members of the Mitzvah Corps leave the Helene G. Simon Hillel Center each month to perform community service. And, soon, we will see the completion of Simon Hall, a multidisciplinary teaching and research building, where students and scientists will have even greater opportunities to further knowledge.
Such transformative generosity is inspired and sustained by a simple value. As Bren says, "This sounds so basic, but when you have been able to be blessed the way the Simon family has been blessed in so many ways, I think it's an obligation to give back, to change the world, to make it a better place."
As IU advances the life sciences, the Simons' gifts will help shape a stronger economy for Hoosiers. Such investments not only enhance IU's profile as a leading research university, they also raise Indiana's reputation as a life science leader in the eyes of pharmaceutical, health, and other industry employers. As those businesses move to Indiana, they will bring new jobs.
And IU, with visionary partners like the Simons, will be there to ready our citizens.