A PERSONAL CAUSE

Each May and October, the Napleton Automotive Group donates a portion of car sales and service fees to fund childhood brain cancer research and to provide support for families with children who are suffering from brain cancer.

Violet Napleton was a smart, sweet, and silly girl who loved Disney movies and dance parties. Just over two years ago, she was diagnosed with diffuse intrinsic pontine glioma, (DIPG), a rare form of childhood brain cancer with a nearly 100 percent fatality rate. In just three-and-a-half-months, she succumbed to her disease when she was just 3 years of age.

The astronaut Neil Armstrong’s daughter, Karen, died of DIPG at the age of 2 in 1962, and there has been very little tangible advancement in treatment for the disease. The Napletons established the Violet Foundation to raise awareness of DIPG and to fund potential new treatments.

“May is Brain Tumor Awareness Month and it’s something that is very personal to us,” Steve Napleton says. “October is Violet’s birthday month, so for those two months we involve our employees, customers, and anybody else we can to fundraise.”

During the two months, Napleton donates a portion of the revenues from every automobile it sells and services to the foundation, and while Countryside Mazda serves as a de facto headquarters for the effort, it involves 55 Napleton car dealerships in the Chicago region and beyond.

In addition to providing grants for research, the foundation also provides grants to families who are going through the same situation the Napletons went through just a few years ago. Napleton was fortunate that the day after Violet received her diagnosis, he was able to take the time off from his work to be with her during her treatment.

“The reality is when someone’s child is diagnosed with cancer invariably everything in life kind of stops,” says Napleton. “In most situations one of the parents stops working or has to cut back on hours to spend time taking their child to treatments. That can create some real financial problems.”

The foundation, which was established in October of 2022, has to date provided grants to more than 100 families and raised over $2 million for both family support and research grants.

To raise awareness, the dealerships offer purple license plate frames to customers who purchase during May or October that draw attention to the Violet Foundation and childhood cancer.

“I’ve actually been surprised by how many people take us up on the purple frames,” Napleton says. “Customers really appreciate knowing that they’re not just buying a car but supporting an important cause. It makes it more than just a transaction.”

Napleton says that while all cancer diagnoses are tragic, there’s something different about a child receiving a cancer diagnosis. It reorders what should be the normal sequence of life.

“When it happens to a child it just seems so wrong and I think people recognize that,” he says. “We realize there’s a lot we take for granted.”

If the Violet Foundation can garner some more attention and resources behind research for DIPG, he says, future generations of children who are diagnosed will have a better chance of survival.

“There are some really bright minds who are on it. There are clinical trials that are going on and being imagined now,” Napleton says. “There’s some really good momentum.”

For more information about the Violet Foundation, visit violet-foundation.org or napletonscountrysidemazda.com.