Our Biggest Volunteer: Scott Hamilton
Scott Hamilton performs with Luke Witkowski during Sk8 to Elimin8 Cancer® Boston in 2021. Photo by Kathryn Costello.
April is Volunteer Appreciation Month, and we’re proud to highlight our biggest volunteer - Scott Hamilton!
What inspired you to volunteer with CARES? Do you have a personal connection to cancer that makes CARES meaningful to you?
I founded CARES out of my cancer survivorship. I paid attention to all that was missing in the cancer experience and I wanted to make it better for the next patient.
Going throuh chemo, I felt like I was flying blind. I needed a guide that had been through what I was about to endure, and I didn’t have one. So I partnered with the Cleveland Clinic to create a mentorship program that pairs newly diagnosed patients with survivors. Next, when I went on the Internet, I couldn’t find user-friendly information. For the next five years, I raised funds to help build chemocare.com, which provides patients going through chemo everything they need to know about the experience, including how it’s administered, how the drugs work, and how to manage the associated side effects.
Since I lost my mother to cancer and I was able to survive it, our focus at CARES is purely on the future of cancer treatment options. Through funded research, we can elevate the science that teaches our bodies how to detect and destroy the cancer. That’s why we focus on immunotherapy, which is targeted therapies that treat the cancer while sparing the patient harm.
I don’t take a salary from CARES or collect any appearance fees - I volunteer because I don’t want to take a penny away from cancer research.
Can you share a memorable experience, event, or moment from your time volunteering?
CARES hosts Sk8 to Elimin8 Cancer® events all over the country. In 2024, we hosted one in New York City to celebrate the 40th anniversary of my Olympic Gold win. At that event, I was able to announce that an immunotherapy research project we funded, designed to treat the cancer that took my mom, was going into a clinical trial. After 47 years of fundraising, there was hope that the next 18-year-old boy was not going to lose his mom.
How has being involved with our foundation changed your perspective on cancer research? How do you feel knowing you’re supporting life-saving research?
So many people I have known over the years that have survived cancer have their own way of managing their survivorship. Some want to roll up their sleeves and work to help the next patient. Others would rather not acknowledge that they’ve ever had cancer. I will never say that one is better than the other. It’s simply a personal choice.
For me, I was diagnosed two months shy of the 20th anniversary of losing my mom. I didn’t choose to get in the fight against cancer - it chose me. With everything I’ve experienced, learned, and witnessed, I know there is a day in the future where no one dies of cancer. That’s why I do the work.
What would you say to someone considering volunteering with CARES?
Serving and volunteering with CARES is empowering, fun, and incredibly rewarding. It’s a great way to participate in the next miracle. How many other opportunities have you ever been afforded where you get to save lives? And not just one, but countless lives!
CARES is doing the work to change cancer forever and for the better, and I’ve always said “the greatest gift given are to those that will never know their origin.”
This is a disease that touches us all in some way, shape, or form. Being a volunteer allows us to step into a position of power to play our part in solving this problem!
Behind the scenes of Scott Hamilton & Friends rehearsal in 2023
Footage from Jordan Cowan, On Ice Perspectives