World's largest specialty retailer of vitamins, supplements and nutritional products asks customers to help kids with catastrophic childhood diseases
PITTSBURGH // PRNewswire // -- For the fourth consecutive year, GNC is partnering with St. Jude Children's Research Hospital( )on its annual Thanks and Giving campaign, now in its sixth year. In 2008, GNC raised over $800,000 from its customers and employees and hopes to increase that total by 25%, to $1 million, during the two-month-long campaign, with 100% of the funds raised going directly to St. Jude Children's Research Hospital. GNC customers will have the opportunity to make a donation at any one of the company's more than 5,300 U.S. retail locations or online at GNC.com. Additionally, GNC will be donating $1 for every MISSION Skincare® Super-C™ lip balm sold in stores and online.
"We are delighted to join St. Jude once again in supporting this amazing outreach program," said Tom Dowd, Executive Vice President, Store Operations & Development. "Giving to the Thanks and Giving campaign is one of the best ways that all of us -- including GNC employees -- can do something important to help children who suffer from catastrophic childhood diseases. Everyone can help raise funds that are vital to breakthrough discoveries and lifesaving cures and to support St. Jude, where families never pay for treatments that are not covered by insurance, and families without insurance are never asked to pay."
"We are thrilled that GNC is once again a part of our annual Thanks and Giving campaign," said Marlo Thomas, National Outreach Director. "Their dedication to the campaign has an enormous impact on the lives of countless children and their families in communities across the country who benefit from their caring and generous spirit. GNC will enable us to carry on our mission that no child should die in the dawn of life."
Give thanks for the healthy kids in your life, and give to those who are not. Donate to St. Jude today.
About St. Jude
St. Jude Children's Research Hospital is the nation's leading pediatric research and treatment center devoted solely to children with cancer and other catastrophic diseases and the only pediatric cancer research center that covers all of the costs for treatment, travel, food, and lodging for a patient and a family member. Children come to St. Jude Children's Research Hospital from across the country and around the world, and no child is ever turned away because of family's inability to pay. Since its inception, St. Jude has developed protocols that have helped push survival rates for childhood cancers from less than 20 percent to more than 80 percent overall. When St. Jude opened in 1962, the survival rate for acute lyphoblastic leukemia (ALL), the most common form of childhood cancer, was 4 percent. Today, the survival rate is 94 percent thanks to the research and treatment protocols developed at St. Jude. Research findings at St. Jude are freely shared with doctors and scientists all over the world, and the work being done at St. Jude impacts the lives of children in communities everywhere.
About Thanks and Giving
The St. Jude Children's Research Hospital(®) Thanks and Giving(®) national campaign is an unprecedented union of celebrities, media, retail and corporate partners that ask consumers to "Give thanks for the healthy kids in your life, and give to those who are not." The Thanks and Giving initiative was created in 2004 by Marlo Thomas and her siblings, Terre and Tony Thomas, children of St. Jude founder Danny Thomas. Funds raised by the campaign support the lifesaving work of St. Jude -- to find cures for children with cancer and other catastrophic diseases through research and treatment. St Jude impacts the lives of children in communities across the country. Consumers are asked to shop at companies where the St.
About GNC
GNC, headquartered in Pittsburgh, Pa., is the largest global specialty retailer of nutritional products including vitamin, mineral, herbal and other specialty supplements and sports nutrition, diet and energy products. As of June 30, 2009, GNC has more than 6,700 locations, of which more than 5,300 retail locations were in the United States (including 936 franchise and 1,756 Rite Aid franchise store-within-a-store locations) and franchise operations in 45 international markets.
SOURCE: GNC
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