Barbara Salisbury/The Gazette Fort Washington resident Saundra Jackson is hoping that advertising and fundraising sales of her new online golf game, Golden Fairway FX, will raise money for research into fanconi anemia, a rare disease that caused her son, Clifton's death in January 2002. Since his death, Jackson has thrown herself into her online company, Cybergolf4U.

Saundra Jackson, 52, is the founder of S & E Diversified Services--a company which recently locally introduced a 3-D online golf game. The game is now used by more than 5,000 Web sites to increase traffic, advertise, and to encourage repeat visitors. Jackson purchased the game from the Clayton, Mo.-based MVP Network and is tailoring it to a local market. MVP Network is a company that provides entrepreneurs and business owners with Internet products and resources.

"The idea was given to me by a colleague in Missouri, and I thought it was a million-dollar idea," Jackson said. "The game is used as a medium for advertising, and entrepreneurial opportunities for other people."

Jackson said over a half-million hits have come to her site www.cybergolf4u.biz over the last eight months, averaging 250-500 per day. She charges $295 per year for potential advertisers, and is already looking into the possibility of adding a bowling game in the future.

Jackson's start in online commerce came out of necessity. Jackson's son, Clifton Langhorne, was diagnosed with Fanconi Anemia, a terminal illness which affects the bone marrow.

"I didn't know much about the net at the time, but I used it to find out more about his disease," she said.

Jackson had used a previous version of the golf game to offset the medical costs, which were sometimes $5,000 per week. After her son died in 2002 at 26, she turned her thoughts to awareness and research for the disease, along with increasing bone marrow transplants from Blacks. Things became more challenging when after 18 years of service, she was laid off later that year from her job at AT&T. But she never stopped moving.

"I've been trying to get the word out," she said. "Maybe his life could've been saved if I got the word out. I owe it to him to help other kids."

Tim Smith, co-founder of the MVP Network, has worked with Jackson on several occasions and is proud of what she is doing.

"She has a beautiful heart and her passion is to help people in need. We have gotten to know her well over a period of time," Smith said.

He added that he and MVP President Paul A. Schneider have visited Jackson at her home for Christmas parties when they were in the area.

"She's introduced us to a lot of folks up there," he said. "She's got a good home-based business."

Jackson's home office barely has the look of a high-tech, national operation. It simply consists of two computers and a laptop. But on working days, her office is awash with paper and bookcases stuffed with varying literature, news items, books, and CD-ROMs surrounding her L-shaped desk.

"It's a typical home-based office," she said. "I do have a TV because I need company."

A printer, fax, and coffee machine complete the look.

Jackson added that she has had obstacles with people taking a middle-aged Black woman seriously in the online world, but she is determined to see her vision through.

Fanconi Anemia is an inherited disorder, resulting in the eventual failure of the bone marrow. According to the Fanconi Anemia Research Fund, people have between a one in 100 to one in 600 chance of carrying the gene.

Suzanne Lauck, family support coordinator for the Fanconi Anemia Research Fund, said she is pleased with the work Jackson is doing.

"It's quite admirable," Lauck said from her office in Eugene, Ore. "She has found something she believes will work, trying to raise money to push science forward."

She added that the fund is tirelessly trying to raise money to discover a cure, and that 85 percent of the money comes from fundraising.

"There is still a lot of work to do, a lot of people still have the disease, especially children," she said.

E-mail Scott M. Lowe Jr. at slowe@gazette.net.