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Q&AZ: What Is The Ben And Catherine Ivy Foundation?

The Ben and Catherine Ivy Foundation has donated $1 million to the COVID-19 vaccination site at State Farm Stadium in Glendale, as well as over $5 million to the Arizona Coronavirus Relief Fund.

Through KJZZ's  Q&AZ reporting project, one listener asked: Who are Ben and Catherine Ivy, and what is the Ivy Foundation?

→  Q&AZ: What You Need To Know About Getting The Coronavirus Vaccine In Arizona

The Ivy Foundation, based in Scottsdale, was formed by Catherine Ivy in honor of her late husband, Ben, who died of brain cancer in 2005. Since then, the foundation has worked on treating and curing brain cancer. The foundation has donated $92 million to cancer research over the past 15 years.

Catherine is an Arizona native, and she moved the foundation to the Valley from California in 2011. Her recent donations to the state, for masks and for the State Farm Stadium vaccination site, are about a return to normalcy for everyday people, and cancer research.

“When this pandemic started, I would say 98% of the cancer research sites shut down, because when a hospital is under financial stress, that’s the first thing they cut is research,” said Catherine Ivy.

Ivy says Arizona is one of the only states continuing cancer research during the pandemic, and she hopes that research expands as more people get vaccinated.

Vaughan Jones was a reporter at KJZZ from 2020 to 2022.