MyCouponers,

Next month we are going to be rolling out a brand new initiative. As you may know, October is breast cancer awareness month. Although we are rolling out the initiative next month, by no means is our commitment for a single month but an ongoing mission that I personally and very deeply care about.

Our plan is to make a donation when any of our MyCoupons exclusive codes are used. Once we launch the program, you'll be able to easily tell which codes are part of the program by looking for the pink ribbon. Each time you save money with one of our coupon codes you'll also be helping the cause against breast cancer.

We will also be organizing a team to participate in a number of next years Race for the Cure events. At this point I'm planning on teams in Pittsburgh (our home) and the national event in Washington DC plus at least one other. Which city would you recommend? Would you be willing to join us and participate?

We'll also be building a breast cancer resource center right here at MyCoupons. This section will include important links about treatment, screening and prevention. I'd also like to share some of the personal stories from our MyCouponers about how breast cancer has touched your lives. If you have a story you would like to share please email me directly. Since I'm asking you to share, I'll share with you my own story.

I'm now a grown man in my 40s and yet I still miss my grandmother. She passed away when I was only 13 years old and after all of these years, I still have vivid memories of the great times I shared with her and the pain she experienced during her final months. My grandmother was not killed directly by breast cancer, she did however, have a mastectomy and the cancer seemed to go away for a few years. Then suddenly, while on a family vacation at a state park, she felt sharp pain in her ribs. The cancer was back and had now spread to her bones. She fought hard but cancer won the battle. When she passed away she was only in her mid-fifties and I'll always miss her. She left us far too soon -- too soon for my children to get to know their wonderful great grandmother -- too soon to be there for my graduations and wedding -- too soon to experience my nieces and nephews.

Our goals are to raise money and raise awareness -- to help make sure our MyCouponers get the screening they need for early detection and the knowledge they need to stay healthy.

__________________
After all these years, I see that I was mistaken about Eve in the beginning; it is better to live outside the Garden with her than inside it without her.

Mark Twain

I appreciate your thoughts and I think that it is amazing that you are contributing money to breast cancer. Breast cancer sucks!!! But any cancer sucks, and I would be hopeful that you would spread the $$ received here in many avenues. Let me give you some numbers...

Cancer is the leading cause of death from disease in children between the ages of 1-19, and that 1 in 330 will be dx by age 20;

More children die from cancer than from all other childhood diseased COMBINED;

The incidence of childhood cancer has increased every year for the last 25 years;

The National Cancer Institute's federal budget for 2003 was $4.6 billion. Of that, breast cancer received 12%, prostate cancer received 7%, and all 12 major groups of pediatric cancers combined received less than 3%;

Every school day, about 46 young people (2 classrooms full) are diagnosed with cancer in the US and that 7 will die each day;

Approximately 20% of adults with cancer show evidence of spread, yet almost 80% of children show that the cancer has spread at diagnosis.
The outcome of children withmy son Patrick's cancer---(stage four aveolor rhabdomyosarcoma) HAS NOT IMPROVED IN 30 years. (I won't even tell you how few survivors there are.)

as a long time member of mycoupons, I beg and plead w/ you to find a way to contribute some of this $$ to help find the cure for the pediatric cancers.

Linnybop,

I can't even imagine the stress of a sick child. My thoughts and prayers are with you and your family.

Thank you for the very thoughtful reply. I promise, I will do some personal research to better understand the complete picture of cancer research funding.

Thanks Greg-what you are doing is pretty wonderful. I didn't mean to get up on my soapbox, but we just found out a few days ago that one of our little friends from the hem/onc clinic has had a recurrence of his cancer and it just makes me feel so helpless. As for my son, he is doing great-he has been in remission since April! Thanks for your kind words and keep up the good work! Lynne