At vynyly, we donate 10% of every sale to the Autumn Leaves Project, a pancreatic cancer focused charity, in memory of my father, John Sr. (pictured here with his beloved single-pickup Danelectro). Dad was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in February 2022 and was gone by the end of March. Cancer in the pancreas is a particularly brutal form of an already brutal disease in that by the time the cancer causes symptoms, it’s usually too late to treat. This was the case with my father.

Musician and producer Butch Walker founded Autumn Leaves, in partnership with the Nikki Mitchell Foundation, in memory of his own father, Butch Sr., who died just one day after his pancreatic cancer diagnosis.

“Pancreatic cancer doesn’t give you a chance to reconcile with it, doesn’t let you make plans sometimes or prepare for the ending; it just usually sneaks up on you and gives you no warning until it’s too late,” Walker says in a press release. “We need better programs for pre-screening, we need more affordable alternatives to the methods and drugs that are out there to cope once it’s diagnosed and, most importantly, we’ve got to find a cure for it.”

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Butch Walker Launches Autumn Leaves Project

Autumn Leaves Project

Nikki Mitchell Foundation