Alex Trebek’s family honored the late “Jeopardy” host Wednesday by creating a cancer research fund in his name.
Trebek’s wife, Jean, and his daughter, Emily, teamed up with Katie Couric’s Stand Up To Cancer (SU2C) foundation to launch The Alex Trebek Fund. “Alex knew that knowledge equaled power. He was a man that really loved to know things and stayed very curious,” Jean said in a statement, according to CNN. She noted the fund is “a way for the community that loved him to put resources directly into the hands of scientists working tirelessly to fight a disease shrouded by many unknowns.”
Stand Up To Cancer released a video on social media, offering more information on the new fund created in Trebek’s honor.
Images of the late game show host throughout his career flashed in the video, reminding fans of Trebek’s decades-long contribution to “Jeopardy.” The slideshow of images coincided with short snippets of interviews with Jean and Emily.
Emily said she hopes “all of the fans and community of ‘Jeopardy!’ really can lean in and show support for this.”
She added that “Jeopardy” fans had previously shown “so much support for my dad when he was going through his cancer treatments.”
The Trebek family launched their new initiative in November, to mark the start of Pancreatic Cancer Awareness Month.
They aim to “accelerate critical research with the goal of better treating pancreatic cancer, which has the highest mortality rate of all major cancers,” according to a statement released to CNN.
View this post on Instagram
The fund has already received over $1 million in contributions. (RELATED: Famous Actor From ‘Shaft’ Dead At 81)
Trebek announced his stage 4 pancreatic cancer diagnosis in March 2019. He died in November 2020 at the age of 80.
Fans wishing to donate can find more information here.