Bill Allen Law Firm Community Priority
Giving Back in Gainesville & Ocala
Thankful people who understand that their lives have been blessed find joy by focusing on the needs of others. With a spirit of gratitude, we want to contribute to our families, our clients, and to our communities.
The majority of the charities supported by Allen Law Firm raise funds for cancer research. This concentration is not a coincidence, it is a personal mission. Several members of the Allen family have been touched by cancer. Two members of our Allen Law Firm team, Attorney Bill Allen’s wife Ginny and his sister-in-law Adamarie, are cancer survivors.
Read more about the charities that we are passionate about below or contact us to learn more.
American Cancer Society – Road To Recovery Program
Own a car and like to drive? Apply to be a Road To Recovery volunteer driver. The American Cancer Society provides free rides for cancer patients to and from treatments.
Trained volunteer drivers donate their time and the use of their personal vehicles to help patients get the treatments they need. The Allen Law Firm has partnered with the local ACS to help promote this worthwhile program.
American Cancer Society – Relay For Life
In April 2015, Allen Law Firm, P.A. sponsored and participated in the American Cancer Society’s Relay for Life that took place in Williston, Florida.
This important event raised nearly $47,000, and we were honored to sponsor the Survivors Tent, where three sisters and cancer survivors — Ginny Allen, Adamarie Keeton, and Libby Barr — celebrated the evening with all of the other cancer survivors.
Our firm sponsored Team Margaret in loving memory of these ladies’ sister, Margaret Akins, who lost her cancer battle in 1999.
Leukemia & Lymphoma Society’s Light The Night
Another organization close to their hearts is the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society’s Light the Night walk. Below is a narrative written by Ginny Allen for the event.
“In 2007, my life changed forever. I felt perfectly fine but noticed that the cavity below my “Adam’s apple” was starting to fill in. Gaining weight, I thought? Of course not! Must be thyroid problems I concluded. An ultrasound led to a CT scan, then a needle biopsy and a lymphoma diagnosis on May 14, 2007. Wow – how did this happen? I was healthy, happy and planning to live well into my late nineties – just like my grandmothers! Non- Hodgkins Follicular Lymphoma was never in my life’s story.
Five more CT scans, a bone marrow biopsy and PET scan followed and then six weeks of radiation to my throat and chest area. Yay – kicked my lymphoma into remission! CT scans every six months and in April 2009, again with no symptoms, my lymphoma returned in a more aggressive form in my stomach. Four rounds of R-CHOP chemotherapy every three weeks, then six weeks of radiation followed by two years of maintenance chemotherapy. No hair, no eyelashes, but loving and appreciating my life as never before! Yay – Kicked lymphoma into remission once again!
Unfortunately, cancer is way too familiar with my family. My dad had colon and prostate cancer and in 1999, I lost my sister Margaret to brain and lung cancer. In 2009, my sister Adamarie was diagnosed with breast and thyroid cancer at the same time of my relapse and, unbelievably, in 2011, my sister Libby was diagnosed with my same type of lymphoma. It brings a whole new meaning to the word “sisterhood.”
June 2013 was the first time going a whole year between my scans and I just recently had my two year scans in June 2015. I am still in remission and thanking God every day for it! My kids who were 17 and 15 at the time of my diagnosis are now 26 and 23, and I am so blessed to be a part of so many of their life events during the past six years. I am so very grateful to my wonderful husband Bill, my dear family and friends and my terrific Dr. Lynch for providing such love and support throughout this journey.
Please join my team and this fight against leukemia and lymphoma. So many lives, including mine, depend on it. Thank you from the bottom of my heart for your support and God bless!” – Ginny Allen
Visiting Hope Lodge with the Gators Gymnastics Team
The Allen Law Firm, P.A. is always ready to support local efforts to fight cancer and encourage cancer victims; therefore, Bill and Ginny Allen make events that raise awareness for cancer a regular part of their agenda.
One recent instance in which the Allens partnered with the efforts of other Gainesville residents to encourage current cancer patients and push for a cure was on February 24, 2015.
The Allens visited the Hope Lodge of Gainesville along with the University of Florida’s women’s gymnastics team in honor of Gator gymnast Rachel Spicer’s mother, who was diagnosed with cancer not long ago.
The American Cancer Society Winn-Dixie Hope Lodge of Gainesville is a temporary home for current adult cancer patients who have traveled to the Gainesville area cancer treatment centers for daily outpatient treatment.
The Hope Lodge unites cancer patients with professionals, families, other patients, and in this case, student-athletes, in order to support and encourage them through the journey of their fight against cancer.
The Gator women were greatly inspired by their visit to the Hope Lodge, and the deepened motivation to defeat cancer they gained that night energized them to defeat Kentucky the following Friday, with Rachel’s mother Mickie Spicer cheering her daughter on as Rachel finished one of the best meets of her career.
The Allens were able to offer experienced empathy to Rachel, her mother, and the Hope Lodge inhabitants as they recalled and shared their personal history with cancer.
The Allens have sponsored events at the Hope Lodge in the past and will continue to endorse cancer-related causes in the North Central Florida community in the future
For more information, visit our friends at Hope Lodge or visit the Florida Gators Women Gymnastics Team.
