Making a Difference Each year, thousands of donors share their spirit of giving by supporting the Sanford Health Foundation. Every day, these gifts touch lives of patients served across the region by Sanford Health by helping purchase life-saving equipment; offering advanced training to healthcare staff; expanding research, programming and services; assisting pediatric patients and their families with lodging, meals and mileage expenses related to their health care..and so much more. Read Sue's story below to learn how donors touched her life. Through your giving spirit, you, too, will make an impact on the lives of your neighbors, friends and family served by Sanford Health. Every gift makes a difference! Yes, I would like to donate.

Donors make a difference for patient

Sue Morarie, is a 27-year-old research graduate student and teaching assistant at South Dakota State University, who is in breast cancer treatment at Sanford Cancer Center.

Sue Morarie started chemotherapy one month after her initial breast cancer diagnosis. The tumor had more than doubled in size, and now a chemo drug coursed through her veins to kill it. To help prepare for the long road ahead, she cut her long blond hair and donated it to Locks of Love, and then—she shaved her head.

The Sanford Health Foundation’s Wig Fund helped Morarie regain some sense of normalcy during her battle with cancer by providing a wig, free-of-charge, that looked just like her hair. When she put it on for the first time she cried. 

 “It’s just hair…but it’s not just hair. The wig made me look like me again,” she said. “As a teacher, feeling confident was unbelievably important to me. The wig helped me maintain my privacy; I could walk into a restaurant without stares. It made me look healthier which made me feel healthier.”

During her treatment, Morarie said the offers of help from people around her were wonderful, but there was so little they could do to make her feel better physically. Now she encourages anyone with a friend or family member fighting cancer to consider a gift to the Wig Fund because it will help someone emotionally.

“Supporting the Wig Fund is something you can do to help,” Morarie said. “It isn’t about vanity; it’s about maintaining any sense of normalcy because nothingabout cancer isnormal. The donors to the Wig Fund allowed me to have a little sense of normalcy back in my world, and for that I am grateful.”

To help support the Wig Fund,  “Make a Gift Today,” and then select the“Wig Distribution Fund.”