Fox Chase Cancer Center Employees Give the "Gift of Life"

PHILADELPHIA (October 3, 2000) -- With the recent blood shortage on their minds, employees at Fox Chase Cancer Center will give the "gift of life" during a blood drive for the American Red Cross, Thursday October 5th from 9:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. in conference room A at Fox Chase Cancer Center.� Already, 145 employees have signed-up to donate blood.

�During the past two years, employees have donated more than 600 pints of blood at drives hosted by Fox Chase Cancer Center.� As many as four blood-drives a year are held at the Center, and about 90 pints of blood are collected at each drive.

Giving blood saves lives.� In our area, the need for blood is often outpaced by rising demand.� More donors are needed.� Cancer patients, accident victims, premature infants and organ transplant recipients are just some of the people that can need blood.

The American Red Cross delivers lifesaving blood around the clock, and provides on-call medical and laboratory support to physicians and their patients in approximately 100 hospitals in New Jersey and southeastern Pennsylvania, thanks to the generosity of healthy, volunteer blood donors.

For more information about donating blood, please call the American Red Cross at 1-800-GIVE LIFE, or visit the Red Cross on the web at www.redcross.org/.

Fox Chase Cancer Center, one of the nation's first comprehensive cancer centers designated by the National Cancer Institute in 1974, conducts basic and clinical research; programs of prevention, detection and treatment of cancer; and community outreach. For more information about Fox Chase activities, visit the Center's web site at www.fccc.edu.