Causes Near and Dear
It is not an exaggeration to say that without the City of Hope I wouldn’t be alive today. It is one of the top cancer research and treatment centers in the world. And one of just a handful of elite institutions to be designated by the National Cancer Institute as a Comprehensive Cancer Center. It was also the location of my nationally televised wedding. Now that’s “comprehensive.”
An estimated 138,500 people in this country will be diagnosed with a blood cancer in 2009. And leukemia, specifically, is the #1 cancer killer of children. Yet thanks to more than 50 years of tireless efforts by the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society we are beginning to win this war.
The flagship fundraising program of the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society, Team In Training alone has raised nearly $1 billion for research and patient services in the last 20 years. It is also the single biggest endurance training program in the world, taking more than 380,000 people across the finish line of a marathon, century bike ride, or triathlon.
Consistently ranked as a top-five hospital in the nation, and the best in the west by
U.S. News & World Report, there is no better place in the world to have a heart transplant than UCLA Medical Center. More transplants are done here, than anywhere. And no one has a better survival rate. My growing collection of triathlon finishers medals can attest to that.
Passing on life to others is the single greatest final act that anyone can leave this world doing. Every day 16 Americans die waiting for an organ transplant that would otherwise save their lives. It doesn’t have to be that way. Please, save a life. Register to be an organ and bone marrow donor today.
