Casey's General Helps Fight Childhood Cancer

ANKENY, Iowa -- This month, Casey's General Stores Inc. is uniting with businesses throughout the country to help fight childhood cancer through the 16th annual Halloween Promotion benefiting St. Jude Children's Research Hospital.

During the monthlong promotion, employees at participating establishments will ask patrons to make a $1 donation to St. Jude. In return, the donors will have the opportunity to write their names on pumpkin-themed pinups, which the establishment will display through Halloween, the California Democrat reported.

In 2006, the Midwest convenience store chain raised $312,326 for the children of St. Jude Children's Research Hospital. The 2006 promotion marked Casey's seventh year of participating. Casey's has now raised more than $1 million since the beginning of its partnership with St. Jude, according to the newspaper.

"Casey's is proud to be a part of the 2007 St. Jude Halloween promotion. As a business, it's important to us to be involved in helping our community thrive. This program allows us the opportunity to do something good for the children in our community and all over the world," Casey's manager Andrea Delehant told the Democrat.

Casey's employees also will be pumping gas from 2 to 6 p.m. every Friday throughout the month of October. All tips received by the employees will go to St. Jude.

Since its inception in 1992, the Halloween program has generated more than $33 million for St. Jude. This year, organizers hope to sell more than 5 million pumpkin pinups by Halloween. "With the help of our partners across the country, I know that it is possible to reach this goal," John P. Moses, chief executive officer for ALSAC, the hospital's fundraising organization, told the paper. "At a cost of more than $1.2 million per day to run St. Jude, our kids rely on generous donors like Casey's and its patrons. With their help, St. Jude can continue its life-saving mission."

Based in Memphis, Tenn., St. Jude Children's Research Hospital is internationally recognized for it pioneering work in finding cures and saving children with cancer and other catastrophic diseases. St. Jude freely shares its discoveries with scientific and medical communities throughout the world. No family ever pays for treatments not covered by insurance, and families without insurance are never asked to pay. St. Jude is financially supported by ALSAC, its fundraising organization.

In other philanthropic news, Pilot Travel Centers' president and CEO, Jimmy Haslam, and his wife, Dee, CEO of RIVR Media, donated $10 million to the University of Tennessee (UT) to support the main campus' forensic anthropology and Renaissance studies programs, The Associated Press reported. Of the total, $2.5 million will go toward the Haslam Scholars Program, the AP reported.

Dee Haslam chairs the UT Development Council, while both she and Jimmy are chairs of the Campaign for Tennessee for the Knoxville Campus. Jimmy Haslam is the son of Pilot founder and university booster and philanthropist Jim Haslam, who, along with his wife, Natalie, made a $32.5 million donation to the university in 2006, according to the AP report.

The students under the Haslam Scholars Program will be part of a study group mentored by top university faculty. The program will boast an interdisciplinary curriculum, and student experiences will focus on study abroad and a research thesis project, the report stated. Haslam Scholars will also receive the Chancellor's scholarship -- the top academic scholarship that covers tuition, fees, room and board and other expenses.

Additionally, the program provides students with a $1,500 laptop computer and a study-abroad experience valued at $4,000, in addition to $5,500 to support a senior research thesis and travel to an academic or professional meeting to present their work, the AP reported. The deadline to apply for the first 15 scholarships in 2008 is Nov. 1.

Additionally, the York, Pa.-based Rutter's Companies -- including Rutter's Farm Stores, Rutter's Dairy and M&G Realty, a real-estate holding company -- recently donated $7,500 to the Dallastown Area Educational Foundation, the company stated.

The award will assist in developing Web-Assign, a Web-based homework service for advanced high school and college-level science classes, according to the company.

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