Aliza Bran
abran@susandavis.com
(202) 414-0798
WASHINGTON (December 16, 2014) –In an historic partnership for lung cancer, Major League Baseball teamed up with LUNGevity Foundation, the nation’s leading lung cancer nonprofit, to raise funds and awareness of lung cancer in honor of Monica Barlow, former public relations director for the Baltimore Orioles. Last Sunday, Major League Baseball officially opened the annual Winter Meetings charity auction to benefit LUNGevity. When the auction closed Thursday, Major League Baseball had raised a record-breaking $176,000 for critical, life-saving lung cancer research, more than any previous auction year.
The memory of Monica Barlow, the 36-year-old former PR director of the Baltimore Orioles who passed away in February after a courageous four and a half year battle with lung cancer, brought the two organizations together, starting with her home team, the Baltimore Orioles. In her honor, the Orioles hosted the Breathe Deep Baltimore walk, with record-high attendance and funds raised, and players, mascots, and sportscasters attended the event and gave it strong support for months in advance.
After almost ten years with the Orioles, Monica Barlow was a part of the Major League Baseball family. The MLB’s thirty teams joined in support of lung cancer funding and awareness, making LUNGevity the beneficiary of the Winter Meetings charity auction to build a better future for others facing lung cancer, the nation’s top cancer killer and the cause of Monica’s untimely death. Major League Baseball is the first professional sports league to join the effort to end lung cancer.
Through the auction, Major League Baseball offered once-in-a-lifetime experiences including the opportunity to bring a baseball player to work, receive private pitching lessons from players and renowned pitching coaches, golf with Hall of Famers and World Series MVPs, and spend the day with the World Series trophy, among others, with proceeds benefitting research into early detection, genomic testing, and personalized medicine for advances in finding and treating lung cancer.
“LUNGevity is extraordinarily thankful for the MLB’s contribution in honor of Monica,” said Andrea Ferris, president and chairman of LUNGevity Foundation. “The awareness that Major League Baseball has been able to generate using its platform is unprecedented and has given incredible hope and inspiration to so many people who are living with the disease.”
For more information on LUNGevity Foundation, please visit www.LUNGevity.org.
About Lung Cancer
- 1 in 14 Americans is diagnosed with lung cancer in their lifetime.
- About 60 percent of all new lung cancer diagnoses are among people who have never smoked or are former smokers.
- Lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer death, regardless of gender or ethnicity.
- Lung cancer kills almost twice as many women as breast cancer and more than three times as many men as prostate cancer.
- Only 17 percent of all people diagnosed with lung cancer will survive 5 years or more, but if it’s caught before it spreads, the chance for 5-year survival improves greatly.
About LUNGevity Foundation
LUNGevity Foundation is firmly committed to making an immediate impact on increasing quality of life and survivorship of people with lung cancer by accelerating research into early detection and more effective treatments, as well as by providing community, support, and education for all those affected by the disease. Our vision is a world where no one dies of lung cancer. For more information about LUNGevity Foundation, please visit www.LUNGevity.org.