SAN FRANCISCO -- For Dawn Oliphant, winning an automobile presented by Giants catcher Buster Posey in Saturday's pregame ceremony at AT&T Park wasn't about the car. It was, however, about finding a vehicle to stimulate awareness of the fight against pediatric cancer.
Oliphant's son, Tristen, died nine years ago of cancer at age 15. She said that at the time of his diagnosis, one in every 336 children were projected to be stricken by cancer. That ratio has since changed to one in 285.
"It's not as rare as people think it is," Oliphant said.
Hearing such statistics and meeting people like Oliphant who have endured family tragedy continue to motivate Posey and his wife, Kristen, to intensify their charitable efforts.
In partnership with Toyota through the Catch the Cure Tacoma Sweepstakes, the raffle for Posey's truck raised $114,000, which went to the Buster and Kristen Posey Fund to benefit pediatric cancer research at UCSF Benioff Children's Hospital in San Francisco.
"When Kristen and I started out, we wanted to start locally and help as much locally as we could," Posey said. "But our goal is to expand this nationally and potentially even globally. The ultimate goal is to end childhood cancer -- obviously a huge ambition. We're not nearly smart enough to figure out how to do it. But we can be a catalyst to help the people who are smart enough to figure out different types of treatments, to make this not an outcome that's so tough in so many families."
During September, which is Childhood Cancer Awareness Month, the Poseys and their partners have raised more than $800,000 for the hospital.
Since the Poseys launched their efforts three years ago, they have raised more than $2.6 million for pediatric cancer research.