Hutch Holiday Gala: $5.1 million

An appeal from a Center faculty member pushed the total funds raised at the 2006 Hutch Holiday Gala to more than $5.1 million. The annual black-tie event, which is the Hutchinson Center's largest fund-raiser, took place Dec. 9.

Dr. Jim Roberts, director of the Basic Sciences Division, and his wife, Pamela Becker, offered this year's challenge gift to benefit a new source of pilot-study funding dubbed the Synergy Fund. Roberts and Becker donated $1.5 million; the Gala audience met the challenge and then some with $2.2 million.

"The Synergy Fund — as a new resource for pilot studies at the Hutchinson Center — is intended to help compensate for the diminishing availability of similarly earmarked funding from other sources, such as the National Institutes of Health," Roberts said.

The Gala has raised more than $54 million for Center research in its 31-year history.