Beyond basketball: Family transforms great loss into a legacy of support for breast cancer

Ann N. McDonald (second from left) was the center of her close-knit family.

Drawing on their shared passion for basketball and the bonds forged through sport, the McDonald children — all high school basketball players — rallied friends and neighbors to gather every August for a basketball tournament fundraiser, transforming their grief into a powerful celebration of Ann's enduring legacy and sustained action for breast cancer awareness and support.

For 24 years, Ann McDonald’s family has built a community of support around people facing breast cancer and the journey of grief and healing they have walked together. Their annual basketball fundraiser draws people from across the family’s network and who participate because they want to be a part of something that has a direct impact on the lives of families who have been affected with a breast cancer diagnosis.

Through their dedication and generosity, the McDonald family has raised more than $375,000 for Living Beyond Breast Cancer. Since partnering with LBBC in 2012, the McDonalds transformed their loss into a powerful tribute and community event that reaches far beyond basketball.

Here, John and Kristin McDonald share some family history and how the family turned their loss into powerful support for the breast cancer community.

For 24 years, Ann’s children and their spouses have honored her through a memorial basketball tournament that has become a powerhouse fundraiser for people with breast cancer.

Who is Ann McDonald?

John: Mom was the backbone of our family in every respect. She was nurturing, loved unconditionally, strong and resilient, and had an enviable faith. She provided unwavering support to her family. She was, first and foremost, the mother of four children – Vince, Steve, Kerry, and me – and the spouse of Vince. I was, of course, her favorite.

She was diagnosed with breast cancer when she was 55. She was approaching her five-year point after diagnosis when her cancer metastasized, and, after a courageous battle, we lost her two days after Christmas in 1999.

The McDonalds are a traditional Irish-Catholic family, which means our mother held a special place of reverence and importance. She was at the center of the faith in the family, sacrificing for all of us, keeping the family together. When the lynchpin to a family receives a cancer diagnosis, it is, at first, shattering. But our family is no different than every other family that has to eventually cope with this; our journey from sadness to hope and back to sadness is such a common journey for families affected by breast cancer.

In those seven years, we had some good days when we were hopeful and optimistic, and we also bad days watching our mother go through very difficult treatments. The doctor visits. The scans. The blood test reports. The varying treatments. It's very, very emotionally depleting, but at the same time, it brings your family together in a way that nothing else can, because the members of the family are all fighting the same fight. And you are going through the same experience supporting your loved one, and, ultimately, this became the very motivation for us doing our annual memorial fundraiser and what brought us together.

A breast cancer diagnosis dramatically changed our family in a powerful and sustained way. We wanted to make whatever small impact we could to help families that were going to go through what we had endured.

Although Ann passed away in 1999, her family transformed their grief into hope for other families supporting a loved one through breast cancer.

How did you decide to create a basketball tournament?

John: One of the strongest links between the four McDonald siblings is the game of basketball. We all played high school basketball. I will be 62 in a few months, and I still compete at least twice a week with players half my age.

In those months after our mom passed, my siblings and I talked about how we could properly honor her memory and her legacy. Our answer proved to be both simple and predictable: We would use the game of basketball to remember and honor her — and also to raise money for families that had been affected in the same way.

So with my brothers, Vince and Steve, and my sister, Kerry, this 24-year journey started on the first Saturday in August in the year 2000. We all met up in the Poconos — where Kristin’s family lives — with a group of family and friends. We played the tournament at a small YMCA on Main Street in Stroudsburg. After the basketball tournament, we had our barbecue at the home of Kristin’s grandparents. And we kicked off what has now become 24 years of tradition, fundraising, and memory building.

How has this event changed over time?

John: More than 15 years ago, the event moved from Kristin’s home in the Poconos to Philadelphia. We hold the basketball tournament at the Springside Chestnut Hill Academy, where our children went to school, and Kristin hosts the post-tournament party at our home in Chestnut Hill. On the Sunday after the tournament, we play a scramble golf tournament at the Philadelphia Cricket Club.

But the dramatic change in the events has been the number of participants, their ages, and their backgrounds. This tournament started with a few teams made up of our high school and college friends. Now there are 8 teams, over 75 participants, male and female, and often an almost 50-year age span between youngest and oldest participants. The participants come from all over our community.

And, of course, the scope of our fundraising has changed. In our first year, we raised a little over $4,000. In this past year, we raised over $40,000 for LBBC.

Next year will be our 25th Anniversary. I will turn 62 early next year –- the same age my mom was when she passed away. I have competed in every one of the memorial basketball tournaments and, God willing, I will compete again in 2026. But now, amazingly, I'm on a team with my son, my nephew, my friends’ kids, and their friends.

If you look at photographs from our first event in 2000, my wife Kristin was pregnant with our first child, Jack. Jack just turned 25. My good friend Bob Levy who competed in this tournament for over 20 years before his body said “No Mas” – his wife Susan was pregnant with their second child at the first fundraiser. Dante also just turned 25. And our daughter, Annie, named after my mother, was born shortly before our third annual fundraiser. She is now 23 and in medical school. Our nieces, Kelsey, Norah, and Noelle, and our nephew, Gerry, have all come of age during the life of this memorial tournament. Kelsey’s husband, Jeremy, a former college basketball player, now anchors the family team with Jack and counts this weekend among his favorite of the year. For us, it's such a special way to tell our family story. We have formed wonderful memories, and it's such a big part of my family's history over these last 24 years.

Kristin: In the beginning, most of the participants were our friends and neighbors. Of course, John’s siblings: Vince and his wife, Natalie; Steve; and Kerry and her husband Gerry. Then, as the children of the original participants got a little older, we added a kids’ basketball game and now those same kids are the ones featured in the adult basketball games. We appreciate that the “kids” are now contributing on their own. Our family friend Jake Webster, who initially participated in the kids’ game, now organizes his own team in the tournament and collects donations from his players and friends. All of these kids, now adults, have learned to give back and have a keen sense of what this is all for.

There has always been a core group of family and friends who have participated and supported us from the very beginning, who still come out to support the event every year, and they really keep the spirit alive. This includes my own mother, Rosemary, who has supported us and this event in many ways from the beginning.

John: During the life of this tournament, Kerry and I have lost both of our older brothers, Vince and Steve. Our brothers were co-founders of this event and, of course, played important roles in it. They also competed in the tournament for many years, so now, this memorial weekend honors our mother and two brothers, as well as our good friends David Korsh and Laura Garufi, who we have lost to cancer during the life of the tournament.

We have come a long way. It used to be that our supporters showed up at the post-tournament BBQ and stuffed a check or some cash in my pocket. Now LBBC hosts a donation link website and, of course, we are using social media tools to increase the awareness of what we are doing. The family is always thinking through ways of making this bigger and better from a fundraising standpoint. We feel very lucky that our friends have been so generous over the years and continue to be. Notably, our fundraising in 2025 for LBBC set a new family record, breaking our prior record from 2019!

Yes, our event has experienced some significant transformations over the years, but, at its core, it continues to be a family-run, do-it-yourself fundraiser. The McDonald and D’Ascoli families come together every year to make the event happen, and, of course, we always receive whatever support that we need from the amazing staff at Living Beyond Breast Cancer, particularly Monica, Christina, and Joanne. Our event has grown and evolved in ways that I could never have imagined. The richness of the connections that my family has made with supporters, contributors, competitors, and participants has been personally very fulfilling.

Over 24 years, a community has sprung from the connections made through participants of the tournament, many of whom are neighbors, friends, and coworkers of the family.

Kristin: Since the tournament moved from my family home in the Poconos to our home in Chestnut Hill, it has evolved in many unexpected and rewarding ways. We have friends that come in and set up the gym early, and we gather at our house to feed our army of volunteers on Friday. There are about 15 to 20 people who stay at our house through the weekend. Now that the “kids” are older, there are even more sets of hands, which all makes it goes very smoothly.

What has not changed, however, are many of the traditions that we started 24 years ago. We have always had an annual tournament t-shirt to commemorate that year’s event. And now every version of the tournament t-shirt honors the memory of Ann, Vince, and Steve. At our 20th Anniversary, my mother took the 20 tournament shirts and had it made into a commemorative blanket, which now hangs in the tent every year. We really get a kick out of seeing our friends and supporters wearing the tournament t-shirt throughout the year, around the neighborhood, and all over the world. Friends will send us photos of them traveling and they are wearing shirts from past tournaments. From my perspective, it is like they are taking a piece of Ann’s legacy with them out into the world. And John loves the fact that, in his weekly organized pick-up games, his guys are wearing Ann McDonald t-shirts from all of the different years that they have played in the tournament.

One of the longstanding traditions of the Ann N. McDonald Memorial Tournament are the t-shirts that mark each year’s event.

How did you decide to partner with Living Beyond Breast Cancer?

John: For the first twelve years of our event, our family directed our fundraising to support awareness of breast cancer, but, over time, we realized we wanted our fundraising to be more personal – to support an organization that is more directly connected to helping the families that are dealing with the diagnosis and that has a more local, personalized touch.

Kristin and I attended the LBBC Butterfly Ball for the first time in November of 2011, and it had a huge emotional impact on me. The video testimonials really got to me. I also learned about all of the amazing resources and support that LBBC provides to families affected by breast cancer. Once our family understood the organization and what it represented, we quickly pivoted and started our partnership with LBBC. I like to joke that I met Jean Sachs at my first Butterfly Ball, and the following morning, she was at my breakfast table asking Kristin and me to be co-chairs of the next year’s Butterfly Ball. And then, shortly thereafter, to join the Board of Directors. I’m quite sure that Jean has a different version of that story.

Our 13-year partnership with LBBC has been a game-changer for our family — we just feel so much better about who we are partnering with and who we are serving. Kristin and I were honored to co-chair the Butterfly Ball in 2013 and I served on the Board of Directors for a six-year term. We have developed such a personal connection to the leadership and the staff of Living Beyond Breast Cancer. The staff and leadership at LBBC, including Jean and past board chair Barbara Yorke, join us every year for the post-tournament party and have become an extended part of the tournament family.

What do you look forward to as you head into the 25th anniversary of this event?

Kristin: We have had three generations of our family embrace this family tradition, which is so amazing. John’s law firm, Cozen O’Connor, has been a great supporter for many years. Bringing more people together not just with the event but with the cause has been rewarding and we hope it continues.

John: Well, I guess at some point I will have to get off the basketball court and hand this over to the next generation of our family, but I’m not ready to do that yet. What I am so proud of and look forward to every year is that the tournament has become this incredible coming together of the community. The post-tournament party that Kristin hosts is now a full family effort. Every family member plays a role in its success. And we now have the assistance of not only our immediate family, our nieces, nephews, cousins, but our neighbors, friends, and members of the community. We all come together to make this a successful event every year. Yes, this event is still about our family, but “our family” has been redefined over the years in such a heartwarming way.

What you will undoubtedly witness when you attend our tournament is a spectacular diversity of age, gender, race, and, frankly, basketball ability, but also friends, neighbors, clients, and others from across the many phases of our lives. This event and all of the connections that have been made are what make this event so rewarding. There are many significant, meaningful friendships that have grown out of this event.

Kerry and I wish, of course, that our two brothers were still here with us to see how this little idea of ours has evolved into what it is today. The whole idea of this basketball tournament originated with the two of them, and it was Vince that served as the Tournament Director when he declared one year that his playing days were over. Now his wife, Natalie, and daughters, Norah and Noelle, have taken over that role. Remarkably, what started with the four McDonald siblings 25 years ago as a way to remember their mother has transformed beautifully into a community effort that we hope has changed the lives of many.

When my family walks into the gym on the first Saturday of August every year and we see the familiar faces, and the new faces, we know we are not there to just play the game of basketball. We are there together to do something important as a family and as a community and to have an impact that lasts well beyond a basketball fundraiser.