ICRF Women of Action Award
In April 2009, more than 600 guests gathered at the Sheraton Centre in downtown Toronto to celebrate the four Women of Action honourees, including POGO’s Director of Development and Strategy, Vanessa Melman Yakobson.Vanessa was diagnosed with Hodgkin’s disease, a cancer of the lymph nodes, when she was 13 years old. As a survivor of childhood cancer, she now works as the Director of Development and Strategy at The Pediatric Oncology Group of Ontario (POGO) to help others who are suffering.
In 2001, Vanessa and her father embarked on a campaign to help POGO raise $4-million to fund a Chair in Childhood Cancer Control at the University of Toronto. Vanessa recognized the potential for the private sector to contribute even more to POGO’s mission to support families and survivors, and fund innovative research programs designed to fill the gaps in conventional pediatric research. Since 2002, Vanessa has helped to raise more than $10M for POGO’s charitable programs.
