Merlinda Chelette passed away on April 17^th after a seven-year battle with metastatic kidney cancer. She was born in New Orleans in 1963 but had moved with her husband Rev. Ricky Chelette outside of Dallas where Ricky is the Executive Director of Living Hope Ministries.

Merlinda was an exceptional woman. She worked over 25 years as a nurse, first in Louisiana as an ICU nurse and an organ procurement coordinator, then in Texas as an ICU and ER nurse.  Additionally, she served as a Sunday School teacher for 2-3-year old’s and was a part of a women’s mission group.

Her knowledge and experience in medicine as well as her compassion enabled her to be a superior patient advocate, and she dedicated herself to working with kidney cancer patients at UT Southwestern (UTSW) where she co-founded the UTSW patient advocacy program. She also dedicated herself to funding research for kidney cancer, a significantly underfunded field of oncological research. With the help of friends and colleagues, she established the first and now annual Kidney Cancer Gala in Dallas and established the UTSW Kidney Cancer Golf Tournament. Her efforts raised hundreds of thousands of dollars for research at the UT Southwestern Kidney Cancer Program. She also consulted with other kidney cancer advocacy organizations including Action to Cure Kidney Cancer.

In memory of Merlinda, ACKC is donating $1,000 to the UTSW Kidney Cancer Program to be used to support their patient advocacy program. People who want to make donations to the UT Southwestern Kidney Cancer Program in memory of Merlinda , click on https://engage.utsouthwestern.edu/kcp-giving.

All gifts are tax deductible.