Buffalo, N.Y. — We have seen blue buffaloes popping up all over WNY. Now we know why.
Roswell Park launched a fundraiser to fight cancer called "Herd of Hope."
The public art project first started as "Herd About Buffalo" back in 2000.
It raised 1 million dollars for Roswell Park.
This time around, instead of each buffalo being individually decorated and auctioned off, Herd of Hope is giving businesses the opportunity to sponsor their own blue buffalo statue to display at their business.
Bill Loecher, the man behind the blue buffaloes, is a volunteer and fundraiser for Roswell Park.
He said there is no shortage of cancer curing ideas at Roswell but it is a lack of funding that keeps these ideas from ever getting off the lab bench and into action.
"Funding for research allows Roswell to get these new ideas off the ground," Loecher said. "To fund clinical trials for drugs that are sometimes the last hope of patients that are running out of treatment options and critical in advancing the development of new therapies that could someday become the next standard of care."
The money raised through this campaign will be used to fund projects to bring clinicians and researchers together and focus on all three aspects of fighting cancer: prevention, diagnosis and treatment.
Roswell's goal is to see hundreds of these buffaloes at businesses all over Western New York by the end of the summer.
You can sponsor a buffalo for yourself. Find out more at their website. There is one sponsorship level at $5,000 per Buffalo.