Mission & History

A patient of Dr. Sidney Farber, dubbed “Jimmy” to protect his identity, appears on a radio broadcast organized by the Variety Children’s Charity of New England. A call for donations is made to help buy Jimmy a television so he can watch the Boston Braves while in treatment. More than $200,000 is raised, and that group of generous donors helped to found what has become known as the Jimmy Fund.

The Theater Collections Program, the Jimmy Fund’s original and longest running fundraiser, begins. A special movie trailer is shown before volunteers walk the aisles with collection canisters and ask for donations to support the Jimmy Fund. Early trailers featured celebrities including Joan Crawford, Bing Crosby, Ted Williams, and Ed Sullivan.

Boston Red Sox owners Tom and Jean Yawkey adopt the Jimmy Fund as the team’s official charity when the Boston Braves move west to Milwaukee, marking the beginning of the longest and most successful charity and sports team partnership in history.

With the help of funds raised by the Jimmy Fund community, Dana-Farber is able to expand its services to treat adults with cancer in addition to children.

The Pan-Mass Challenge (PMC), a two-day bike-a-thon across Massachusetts, is founded. The PMC contributes 100% of every rider-raised dollar to the Jimmy Fund, and in 2024 surpassed $1 billion raised for Dana-Farber Cancer Institute.

Jimmy Fund Golf, the nation’s oldest and largest charity golf program, is officially organized, raising more than $150 million for the Jimmy Fund since its beginnings. 

The first Jimmy Fund Scooper Bowl®, an annual three-day, all-you-can-eat ice cream festival, is held on the Boston Common.

The Jimmy Fund Walk begins with support from the Boston Athletic Association (B.A.A.). The Walk is the only event other than the Boston Marathon® itself to use the historic course and is now the largest single-day walk fundraiser in the country.

The Jimmy Fund celebrates 50 years of progress in the fight against cancer. Just in time for the celebration, Einar Gustafson is identified as the original “Jimmy” and returns to Dana-Farber as a symbol of hope for thousands facing cancer.

The inaugural Jimmy Fund Radiothon airs on WEEI, raising more than $325,000 through radio appeals from doctors, patients, and celebrities. NESN joins the event the following year, turning it into a two-day radio-telethon that broadcasts live on radio and television simultaneously.

With Jimmy Fund patients cheering them on from their hospital beds, the Boston Red Sox celebrate their first World Series championship win since 1918. Tim Wakefield, former Jimmy Fund Captain and part of the championship team, visits the Jimmy Fund Clinic with the trophy.

The Jimmy Fund Scooper Bowl celebrates its 25th anniversary with more than 40 flavors of ice cream and frozen yogurt at Boston City Hall Plaza. The event raises $253,734 during this milestone year.

Former Red Sox player Mike Andrews retires as Jimmy Fund Chairman, after dedicating more than 30 years in support of Dana-Farber and the Jimmy Fund.

The Jimmy Fund and the Boston Red Sox celebrate the 60th anniversary of their historic partnership.

The Dana-Farber Marathon Challenge team, the largest charity team in the Boston Marathon®, celebrates its 25th year running to raise money for the Claudia Adams-Barr Program for Innovative Basic Cancer Research at Dana-Farber, which funds the creative research and innovative ideas of scientists and investigators.

Boston Red Sox President/CEO Emeritus, Larry Lucchino, is named Chairman of the Jimmy Fund. Lucchino, also a Dana-Farber patient and a member of the Board of Trustees, serves as a dedicated and passionate advocate until his passing in 2024.

The Dana-Farber Campaign launches, becoming the most ambitious fundraising effort in the Institute’s history and one of the largest ever in the U.S. focused solely on cancer. Key funding priorities supported by the Jimmy Fund include next-generation cancer drugs, immunotherapy, and prevention and early detection.

The Jimmy Fund celebrates a monumental milestone: 75 years of its generous and dedicated community supporting cancer research and care at Dana-Farber. Members of the Institute’s founding families—Dana, Farber, Koster, Lockwood, Perini, Redstone, Smith, Sullivan, and Yawkey, along with the family of the original “Jimmy,” Einar Gustafson—reunite to celebrate the progress they made possible.

The Dana-Farber Campaign concludes. Driven in part by funds raised through the Jimmy Fund, the Campaign surpasses its goal, raising a staggering total of more than $2.5 billion for cancer research and care at Dana-Farber.