The Richard M. Schulze Family Foundation has announced a gift of $9.6 million to the American Cancer Society toward construction of a Hope Lodge in Jacksonville, Florida.

The gift launches a cancer society campaign to raise $19.2 million to build, operate, and maintain the thirty-two-room facility, which will provide cancer patients and their caregivers with a free place to stay while receiving treatment at the Mayo Clinic, the University of Florida Health, Baptist Health, St. Vincent's HealthCare, and other cancer treatment facilities in the area. In addition to a community dining room, kitchen, family room, library, and laundry room, the facility will offer shuttles to local hospitals and support from cancer survivor volunteers. The land for the facility will be provided by the Mayo Clinic.

"What this does...is provide [local cancer treatment facilities] with an opportunity to recruit patients," said Kellie Ann Kelleher, the cancer society's Jacksonville campaign director, "[and] an opportunity to tell patients you don't have to worry about the expense of a place to stay." ACS hopes to raise the rest of the funds by December 2016 and open the facility by December 2018.

Established by the founder and former chairman of Best Buy, the foundation previously donated $7.5 million in support of Hope Lodges in Minneapolis and Rochester, Minnesota. Schulze lost his first wife in 2001 six months after she was diagnosed with mesothelioma, an aggressive cancer that affects the membrane lining of the lungs.

"Every family, including my own, has been affected by cancer," Schulze told the Florida Times-Union. "Battling the disease is challenging enough without the financial and emotional stress of traveling for treatments. The Hope Lodge is a vital addition to medical communities, as it helps patients and caregivers remain focused on getting well, rather than worrying about where to stay and how much it will cost."