Nov. 13, 2013:  The "Elizabeth’s Hope" flag had come a long way, from Bronxville, NY, to Tanzania, where it would be unfurled at the summit of Mt. Kilimanjaro to raise funds for pediatric brain cancer research.

But just shy of the summit, Tom Jones, 62, fell ill and wasn’t sure he'd make it. For two days he took the antibiotic Cipro, but there was no improvement. So he asked his fellow climbers and his porter, Aaron Sinkuya, a deeply religious man, if they would take the flag up to the summit without him. 

His porter and fellow climbers had been inspired by Jones's story of his best friend's daughter, Elizabeth Minter, who had died at age 21 of an inoperable brain cancer and the reason why Jones was making the climb.

"The day before the ascent, Aaron came by my tent to visit me and said that he'd been praying for me for two days, and God wanted me to make it to the summit for Elizabeth," Jones said. "Aaron then quoted Deuteronomy 7:15 to me, 'And the Lord will take away from you all sickness, and will afflict you with none of the terrible diseases of Egypt which you have known, but will lay them on all those who hate you.'" He paused, and added, "I woke up the next morning at 3:30 am for the final ascent, and my stomach problems were no longer an issue."

Jones, a Bronxville resident since 1982 who works for Alvarez & Marsal, a turnaround/corporate restructuring and business consulting company, is but one of hundreds of Bronxville residents who have been inspired to support Elizabeth's Hope, launched by Emmie and Mike Minter, which is approaching its second anniversary on November 17. Another resident, Gretchen Scott, donated all the proceeds from a blouse she designed for Elizabeth's Hope.   

All these efforts to support Elizabeth's Hope have served to seed the Children's Brain Tumor Project at the Weill Cornell Pediatric Brain and Spine Center, founded in 2011. Its website states, "The project owes its inspiration and launch to Elizabeth Minter, whose battle with gliomatosis cerebri--a rare and inoperable brain tumor--inspired her surgeon, Dr. Jeffrey Greenfield, to undertake this groundbreaking research initiative. In starting the Children's Brain Tumor Project, Dr. Greenfield joined forces with Dr. Mark Souweidane, who had already spent a decade researching and testing alternative therapeutic delivery systems for other inoperable brain cancers, such as DIPG." More than a dozen families throughout the country now support the project, but Elizabeth's Hope alone has raised nearly $1,000,000.

"Jeff [Greenfield] performed a biopsy on Elizabeth's tumor," Emmie Minter said. "Her prognosis was grim from day one. Jeff was inspired by her to do something for kids with rare and inoperable tumors. In the spring of 2011, he asked if Elizabeth and we were interested in supporting his vision, and the answer was 'yes.' He had incredible credentials and the passion and ambition to help these kids. It was an opportunity for us to be more than a passive victim. Elizabeth was unable to work or go to school. The project gave her some purpose and hope."

What Dr. Greenfield and his colleagues are pioneering is the idea of precision medicine, or getting a fingerprint for the tumor and personalizing the therapy.

"The one-size-fits-all therapy is not the way of the future," he said. "If we can figure out exactly in each tumor what's gone wrong, we can tailor the chemotherapy and the regimens directly to those patients. It's a very expensive and time-consuming endeavor. That's really what the vision was when I talked with Elizabeth and her parents and that's what's really gotten off the ground. We've made enormous strides and have started doing this in a routine way for a lot of kids. Their foundation and their dream has really taken off, and it's done something meaningful and hopefully it's just the beginning of something."

In July 2012, Dr. Greenfield, his wife Dr. Caroline Long, and their three sons, Liam, 6, Charlie, 4, and Sam, 1-1/2, moved to Bronxville.

"Maybe subconsciously I knew the outpouring of support and the amount of community behind Elizabeth was reflected in my decision to move," Greenfield said. "Certainly, being in Bronxville now for 1-1/2 years, I’m not at all disappointed. The sense of community is even greater than I would have expected. It’s just been a wonderful place to start raising my family."

Tessa Naso, 24, was an early supporter of Elizabeth's Hope. Two years older than Elizabeth at Bronxville High School, they were on the softball and tennis teams together. When Naso isn't working in marketing and public relations for the Union Square Hospitality Group, she devotes several hours a week as the volunteer coordinator for Elizabeth's Hope.

"I work with all the students and any Bronxville high schooler or anyone who wants to plan an event for Elizabeth's Hope," Naso said. "Anything from 'I'm running a race and I want to donate all proceeds to Elizabeth’s Hope, what can I do?' to 'I want to host a fun sporting event and could you help me brainstorm?'"

Her involvement with Elizabeth's Hope began when she organized a fundraiser at Soul-Cycle in Scarsdale two years ago.

"I just wanted to do something for her," Naso said. "I wasn’t working at the time and in between internships. I thought I'd do something fun while friends were home for Christmas and Elizabeth would be there. We raised $43,000, and then others started doing events. Everyone wanted to help; they just didn't know how."

Minter's classmates initiated fundraisers on their college campuses, ranging from a capture-the-flag tournament organized by Chandler Rutherfurd at the University of Virginia to a mixed doubles tennis tournament organized by Erin Hackett at Gettysburg College. Many of these have become annual events.

Bronxville High School's yearly Bronco Bonanza donates to Elizabeth's Hope. Recently, Caitlin Hudson ran the New York Marathon to raise money for the cause. Another Soul-Cycle event this summer raised an additional $15,000. The efforts by Bronxville High School students and graduates have raised nearly $80,000 to date, according to Sue Conroy, marketing specialist with the Weill Cornell Brain and Spine Center.

"So many people are struggling with the same thing as Elizabeth went through," Naso said. "They’re Googling it and Elizabeth’s Hope comes up. [Fundraisers] are happening that I don't even know about sometimes."

The Minters, who moved to Jackson Hole, Wyoming, following Elizabeth's death on May 30, 2012, hope that, with a secure and growing source of funding, the lab will deliver new treatment options that at the very least can make the disease chronic as opposed to fatal. 

"At the moment, the diagnosis of inoperable brain tumor really means 'pray for a miracle,'" Emmie Minter said. "'Rare' means no clinical trials. No parent should ever hear upon diagnosis, 'Take your child home; there is nothing we can do.'"

As Elizabeth's Hope reaches its second anniversary, Naso encourages others to "get involved and look back on Elizabeth's legacy."

"Elizabeth's Hope is really amazing because it kind of continued what Elizabeth was," Naso said. "It helps bring people together and she always brought people together. Elizabeth had an amazing way of making everyone around her happy and bringing everyone into the same network. Elizabeth's Hope brought people together for a good cause, and she would be so happy to see what everyone is doing."

Tom Jones agrees that Elizabeth "could make friends with a rock." He had watched her grow up, but it wasn't until her diagnosis in 2011 that he connected with her "in a way that I do not have words to describe." He shared with Elizabeth that he was told he had cancer in 1974, a bad-odds cancer with less than one in three survival rate.

So when Jones reached the summit of Mt. Kilimanjaro, it was a personal victory for him as well, but what was more important to him was that the money he raised will benefit Elizabeth's Hope and the Children's Brain Tumor Project.

"The total is over $60K so far," he said happily. "And money is still flowing in."

Pictured here (rotating):  Elizabeth Minter, Minter and her family, and Tom Jones at summit of Mt. Kilimanjaro.

Photos courtesy the Minter family, Irena Choi Stern, and Tom Jones