One of the most aggressive forms is pancreatic cancer. It's almost always fatal — mostly for one reason: it goes undetected until it's too late. 

That is about to change in Atlanta, thanks to a local restaurant owner who has gone from serving dinner to saving lives.

In 30 years, restaurateur Maria Fundora turned the Italian eatery Casa Nuova into a beloved Alpharetta institution, much of the food grown on her farm in Milton.

"We have peach and pear trees. We use those to make gelato," Fundora said, showing CBS News Atlanta's Brian Unger around the grounds. "I feel free here, I feel at peace here."

It's a remarkable run for anyone, let alone a 66-year-old, 5-foot-tall widow, the daughter of Cuban immigrants who built a life from the ground up.

But in 2007, Fundora took on a second full-time job, one she never asked for, when her mother, Illuminata Millian, died from pancreatic cancer.

"She was diagnosed May 21, 2007, and died Sept. 6, 2007. It was very, very fast," she said.

That loss got Maria Fundora thinking about a different legacy.

"I said, 'I have to do something,'" Fundora said.

She started small — raising money and donating it to pancreatic cancer research. Her first event was held on Mother's Day in 2008. Fundora believes it raised around $3,000. Fast forward to 2026, and what was once a modest tribute has become a multi-million-dollar philanthropy operation, run with her executive director, Janice Chalovich, from Table 14.

"I think I could best summarize her in three components as tenacious, resourceful, and dedicated," said Dr. Andrew Page, the co-founder of Atlanta's Piedmont Pancreas Cancer Surgery Clinic.

The group calls itself the Purple Pansies. Purple, named after the color of pancreatic cancer awareness and the pansy, a resilient flower that blooms even in winter.

Page approached Maria with an idea that at first sounded impossible.

"The word impossible does not exist in my vocabulary. I said, 'We can do this. Why? Why not? Why can't we do this?'" Fundora said.

A month ago, with funding from the Purple Pansies, Piedmont Hospital opened its first early detection center for pancreatic cancer here in Atlanta, the only one of its kind in the Southeast.

"If they catch it early, with just the drugs that we have right now to treat it, your survival rate is 88%," she said.

Whether she's juggling dinners or donors, Maria Fundora is at work, turning her loss into time for somebody else, guided by a simple principle: the most important ingredient isn't in the kitchen. It's in each of us.

"I don't know, maybe that's an innocent way of thinking about it, or idealistic, but I really believe people want to help others all of the time," she said.

You can learn more about the Purple Pansies on the organization's website.