It’s the season of giving back! Hold’em for Life Charity held its annual black-tie event on November 25, 2021, at the Royal York Hotel in Toronto. The event included top real estate leaders and executives who came together for a fun night out full of entertainment, networking and playing poker to raise money and support The Hold’em for Life Fellowship Program for cancer research.

The Program is part of the $16.4 million commitment to the University of Toronto’s Faculty of Medicine and partner hospitals including the Princess Margaret Hospital Foundation, which Dr. Vuk Stambolic, senior scientist at the Princess Margaret Cancer Centre, and fellow senior scientist Dr. Rama Khokha is a part of. This program identifies ways to help advance patient treatment with the support of up to twenty world-class researchers every year. It helps qualified researchers complete their Ph.D., which will train them to expand their ideas and to develop their own research programs in the future. All the aspects that are taught in this program — essential training, critical thinking, executing complex experiments and identifying new areas of research — are in the hope that these researchers will further develop their knowledge in basic science research but more importantly find cures for cancer.

Co-chairs Gavin Cheung, incoming President of CentreCourt Developments, and Bob Blazevski, President & COO of DiamondCorp, of the Hold’em for Life Real Estate Charity Poker Challenge, held the event. This year, the fundraising gala brought in a remarkable record-breaking amount, raising more than $3.1 million for the program.

Since 2006, Hold’em for Life Organization has raised more than $40 million, which has led to 50 published Hold’em For Life research papers and presentations. The money raised has also helped fund breast cancer and prostate cancer research initiatives, as well.

Dolce was a proud sponsor of the event this year, with the hope of helping further research development for the Hold’em Fellowship Program. The program also funds other initiatives in scientific research, such as Oncology Scientist Awards and Translating Discoveries into Breast Cancer Cures.

Give three cheers to helping a great cause that continues to develop amazing work for the greater purpose of cancer patients and society!