This holiday season, nearly 2,000 retail stores in nine states will be adding products to their shelves that will allow shoppers to buy gifts and contribute to children’s cancer care at the same time.
The Children’s Art Project, of the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center Children’s Cancer Hospital, is stocking colorful displays of seasonal cards, stationary, and other gift items — all adorned with artwork created by pediatric cancer patients. Sales benefit cancer programs run by MD Anderson.
The displays are maintained by an army of 400 volunteers, as part of the project’s Adopt-A-Display program, who keep the non-profit’s national displays in local retail and grocery stores stocked with colorful seasonal products.
Many volunteers are longtime CAP supporters, cancer survivors, and family members and friends of those who have undergone treatment at MD Anderson. Retail outlets donate space for the displays, which hold a selection of CAP’s seasonal cards and stationary items. Among them: Albertsons, Brookshire Brothers, Central Market, CVS, Fiesta Mart, Gerland's, H-E-B, Kroger, Market Basket, Mister Car Wash, Publix, Randalls, Rice Epicurean Markets, Palais Royal, Bealls, Tom Thumb, and United Supermarkets.
From 2009 to 2011, the program generated close to $160,000 in product sales to benefit the Children's Cancer Hospital as part of CAP's mission to fund non-medical pediatric patient programs designed to bring a sense of normalcy to young lives interrupted by cancer. In addition to the art program, CAP funds an in-hospital school, field trips, and summer camps.
Since 1973, CAP has funded more than $29 million to programs that benefit cancer patients and their families.
For more information on the Adopt-A-Display program, CAP, or how to volunteer, please visit: www.childrensart.org/displayvolunteer or call 800-231-1580.