Party With a Purpose Honors Domenick Bucci, MD, and the HEADstrong Foundation

Nick Colleluori was always a strong-willed, tenacious individual. His mental toughness earned him the nickname “Head” when he was 8 years old; got him a starting spot on a Hofstra University lacrosse team ranked second in the nation when he was a freshman; and willed him to form a foundation to help patients with cancer when he was 19 years old and his health was deteriorating from diffuse large B-cell non-Hodgkin lymphoma.  

Nick knew firsthand how a lack of resources can impact a patient and their family. During his cancer care, his family relocated to a new city where they crammed seven people into a small hotel room with sleeping bags on the floor. He also saw how it impacted other families. When getting a transplant closer to his home at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, they met a patient’s family that was forced to sleep in their car because they couldn’t afford a hotel room. So, Nick’s father invited them to their house for a warm meal, a chance to do laundry, and a break from hospital life.

Nick wanted to help more families like this. From his hospital bed, he outlined the goals for what would be called the HEADstrong Foundation, drew its logo on a napkin as he was being wheeled into the operating room, and enlisted the help of his lacrosse teammates to sell shoelaces that were lime green—the awareness ribbon color for non-Hodgkin lymphoma—to raise money to support patients and cancer research.  

Nick had much larger plans, only he didn’t have time to see them through. When his doctors informed him there was nothing left that they could do for him, he told his mom, Cheryl, “I need you to take the foundation to where it needs to go.” 

Since Nick’s passing on November 28, 2006, Cheryl and her family have worked to fulfill Nick’s vision. In 2011, they launched a program that has become the heart of HEADstrong Foundation’s efforts: Nick’s House. The program offers fully furnished, cost-free lodging for families traveling 50 or more miles for cancer treatment. Currently, they have locations in three cities all located a short distance from major cancer centers—with a large home in the suburbs of Philadelphia, two in Boston, and three that just opened in Durham.   

“My promise to Nick was that we would do our best to make the greatest impact in his name,” Cheryl said. “There’s nothing greater than being able to uplift families during their darkest times.” 

The HEADstrong Foundation now provides 4,290 nights of lodging annually, and has saved families about $1.1 million in 2025 alone, Cheryl said. In total, the foundation has raised more than $40 million to help 39,104 families. Over the next 10 years, they plan to expand Nick’s House to other cities with nationally recognized cancer institutions to ensure they continue to operate with Nick’s tenacious spirit. 

“It dawned on me about five years ago that Nick gave our family a path forward, because we were lost for a while,” Cheryl said. “This gives us the ability to stay close to him, and he really still leads us from afar.” 

On October 25, 2026, the HEADstrong Foundation will be recognized at this year’s Party with a Purpose as the Community Impact Award recipient. This annual gala, which is held by the Friends of the AACR Foundation, raises funds to support early detection and prevention research through AACR. (The Friends of the AACR Foundation organizes fundraising events throughout the year, including the upcoming Pickleball with a Purpose on November 15.)

This year’s Party with a Purpose gala will also recognize the scientific achievements of two cancer researchers (who you can read more about in this previous post) and Domenick Bucci, MD, vice president, medical management and medical policy at Independence Blue Cross, as the Humanitarian Honoree.

Bucci’s interest in medicine was first sparked in the seventh grade, thanks to a little encouragement from his mother. Whenever she had a doctor’s appointment, she would ask the physician to show her son their various tools and take him under their wing. Wanting to learn more, Bucci gravitated toward books about medicine—all the way to medical school.

He started his career in the emergency room where he saw around 40 patients a day and quickly learned how much he enjoyed not just treating people but helping them through a tough situation. One patient left a particular impression: an elderly woman who came in at 3:30 a.m. with multiple complaints. When he discovered she had metastatic cancer, he took the time to learn more about what was going on in her life, why she didn’t seek care sooner, and what her doctors could have done better to catch this disease earlier.

“That was definitely a turning point,” Bucci said. “I wanted to know where we failed in the health care system. It taught me to be more empathetic and compassionate. And it made me want to address care for a bigger group of people.”

Over the next 30-plus years, he has transitioned between roles at a health insurance company, a major health care network, a health care data platform, and The Joint Commission, which evaluates and accredits health care organizations across the United States. This helped him understand how the health care system works from all angles, and how he could make improvements to make it easier for patients to get care.

In those roles, Bucci worked to increase the capacity and quality of care at three hospital systems in Northeast Philadelphia, helped to make it standard of care in Philadelphia for anyone who reports chest pain to have their heart checked in 24 hours, and is currently working with both Blue Cross Blue Shield and Medicare to decrease the number of tests and treatments that require prior authorization by the insurance plan before a patient can access them throughout the United States.

“One of my proudest accomplishments, however, is helping other doctors explore what they could do in health care beyond treating patients, whether it be in charity work, getting involved in organized medicine through different medical societies, or giving back to the community in other ways,” Bucci said. “I think all physicians should do this.”