Donate change to help find cure

Every five minutes someone in the United States is diagnosed with a blood cancer: leukemia, Hodgkin or non-Hodgkin lymphoma, or myeloma. Every nine minutes, someone dies.

Although progress has been made against blood cancers, the leading cause of disease-related deaths among children remains leukemia. Lymphomas are the most common blood cancers with incidence increasing with age, and myeloma has a 30 percent survival rate.

In an effort to cure blood cancers, the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society’s Pennies for Patients nationwide campaign urges Americans to fight these life-threatening diseases by donating a handful of change per family-a small contribution that could help raise $75 million to fund research and provide patient service programs.

Coinstar Inc., the world’s leading self-service coin-counting company, is now accepting donations on behalf of the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society through a feature available on nearly its entire network of more than 10,000 machines at participating supermarkets. This feature makes it easy to give a direct contribution to the organization. Individuals can simply pour their loose change into the machine, which automatically counts the coins and prints a tax-deductible receipt for the amount of the donation.

For more information on the Pennies for Patients campaign or other services and programs of the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society, call (800) 955-4572. To find a Coinstar machine nearest you, call (800) 928-CASH or visit www.findcoinstar.com.

This story was provided by the North American Precis Syndicate