The BMCF helps patients and their families throughout every aspect of their experience by providing vital financial assistance, patient navigators, counseling, emotional support programs, physician and hospital referrals, and opportunities for community and connection including the CancerBuddy app.

Thanks to our fundraising events and generous donations, every single one of our services is free to patients and their families. So far, the BCMF has distributed over $12 million dollars in financial support and assistance to over 150,000 patients.

For over two decades, our mission has been to match patients and their families with the services they need—from diagnosis through survivorship. We are here to help cancer and transplant patients make effective decisions about treatment and its aftermath.

Working with hospitals across the United States, we are dedicated to making sure BMCF’s programs and services are offered to patients and their families free of charge.

Christina Merrill, Founder

As a young social worker at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center and Mount Sinai Medical Center, Christina Merrill witnessed firsthand the multitude of challenging hurdles patients have to navigate. Seeing the tremendous need for additional financial assistance and emotional support that most patients require–but aren’t always receiving–she began trying to help, even donating her own money to cover patients’ co-pays or transportation costs.

Realizing that she could only help so much as one person Christina decided to start raising money to make a bigger impact on the lives of cancer patients. In 1992 Christina launched the Bone Marrow & Cancer Foundation, throwing her first fundraiser at the Copacabana Club in Manhattan. Her father, well-known jazz pianist Joe Bushkin, was the first performer for this first of many fundraisers.

Today, Christina has expanded BMCF to offer solutions for every challenge she sees patients facing. The BMCF offers counseling to support mental health, crowdfunding to raise additional funds, and patient navigators to connect with the right medical team. CancerBuddy, their peer support app, helps patients, survivors and caregivers find resources, connection, and community with others battling cancer.

Leadership

The BMCF is guided by a medical advisory board of nationally-recognized cancer specialists, as well as specialty advisory boards of nurses and of social workers. These, along with our distinguished Board of Directors, comprise our leadership teams:

Board of Directors >
Medical Advisory Board >
Nursing Board >
Social Work Board >

Connecting People to Support