Rogers, Loeffler share bond in Making Cancer History®

BY Sarah Watson

Comparing notes at the Little Galleria children's play area, a project of the Houston Galleria and MD Anderson Children's Cancer Hospital, Ashley Loeffler (left) and Regina Rogers agree they're on the same page in support of MD Anderson. Photo: Wyatt McSpadden

They’re a generation apart, but when it comes to supporting MD Anderson, their goals clearly align. Senior Board of Visitors (BOV) member Regina Rogers of Beaumont, Texas, and Advance Team member Ashley Loeffler of Houston are unabashedly passionate about the institution’s mission to eliminate cancer.

Rogers’ relationship with MD Anderson spans 50 years, and Loeffler joined the Advance Team in 2007. Yet the bond they share transcends the decades between them as each goes about the business of Making Cancer History.

“If I was asked to give three words to describe MD Anderson, they would be compassionate, caring and loving,” Rogers says.

She was 14 when her brother Arvey, just beginning his medical career, underwent thyroid cancer surgery at the hands of Edgar C.White, M.D., then chief of surgery. Years later, her mother, Julie, also was successfully treated at MD Anderson for breast cancer.

“As I have walked the halls of MD Anderson for the past five decades, what always touches my heart is the level of care given to all patients, regardless of their station in life,” says Rogers, who holds a law degree but devotes much of her time to community programs for medically underserved residents of southeast Texas — when she’s not serving MD Anderson in the tradition of her late father, BOV Life Member Ben Rogers.

Loeffler has family mentor

Ashley Loeffler also looks to a family mentor in her capacity as an MD Anderson volunteer. Her mother-in-law, Nancy Loeffler of San Antonio, is chair of the BOV and a cancer survivor.

“Watching someone you love fight cancer is difficult, and that made me even more interested in being involved with MD Anderson as a volunteer,” says Loeffler, a stay-at-home mom with three children and whose lengthy resume includes a stint in university fundraising.

“We’re so fortunate to have the No. 1 cancer hospital in the nation right here in Houston. I’m honored to be able to give back to an institution that’s given so much to so many.”