Gifts in Action - Charlie Wolfe

MEET CHARLIE WOLFE

 Charlie Wolfe, a 2000 engineering graduate of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, is all too well aware of the daily struggles involved in living with diabetes. His fiancée, Britta Tencate, has the disease.

And while there is currently no cure, he is determined to help find one. His $12,500 gift, matched by the GE Foundation, will endow an annual prize given directly to a graduate student conducting diabetes research.

"By going directly to the student, we maximize the gift's effectiveness by avoiding organizational bureaucracy and overhead costs that can weigh down research efforts," says Wolfe.

The innovative award can be given to any student on the Urbana campus who is conducting diabetes research — whether it's an engineer working on a new insulin pump, a sociologist studying the effects of living with the disease, or a medical researcher working to discover a cure.

"Charlie Wolfe's gift is in keeping with the College's passion for addressing health problems and our commitment to doing it in an interdisciplinary way," says Dr. Brad Schwartz, the College of Medicine's regional dean at the Urbana-Champaign campus. "This approach allows us to take advantage of the creativity and expertise of people across disciplines to tackle important issues in human health."

The couple anticipates the fund will grow this summer when they marry because they intend to encourage guests to donate to the fund in lieu of gifts.