As San Francisco Giants slugger Barry Bonds chases Hank Aaron's home run record this season, members of the Giants pitching staff will be playing for a different kind of goal,
one that Bonds would admit is much more important than breaking one of baseball's all-time records.
For every strikeout thrown by a Giants pitcher during a regular season home game, Genentech, the San Francisco-based biotechnology firm, will donate $100 to The Wellness
Community, a national nonprofit cancer organization (with local offices in Walnut Creek, CA). With approximately 500 strikeouts a year at home games, the Giants are likely to
raise about $50,000.
The donations are the centerpiece of a new campaign, "Strike Out Cancer," that kicked off on Opening Day, April 12, when the Giants beat the Milwaukee Brewers 7-5. The
campaign, a partnership among Genentech, the Giants and The Wellness Community, is dedicated to educating and raising awareness about many of the resources available to cancer
patients and their families.
"We approached the Giants knowing the team's long-term commitment to community relations in the Bay Area -- within every player contract is a clause to contribute to community
relations -- as well as close, but unfortunate links to cancer among some of the players," says Neil Cohen, director of product communications for Genentech.
Giants starting pitchers Kirk Reuter, Jerome Williams and Jason Schmidt and bullpen coach Mark Gardner - they have all lost loved ones to cancer - are lending their support to
the program. Barry Bonds' father, Bobby, died of lung cancer last year. "We thought about donations for each home run hit but in our conversations the Giants liked the idea of
strike outs" to drive the campaign, Cohen adds.
The program has several ongoing PR components. Throughout the season, Genentech and the Giants will raise awareness about cancer information through PSAs that will run on local
TV and radio stations as well as on the Giants scoreboard in between innings at SBC Park. (Separately, Giants baseball radio KNBR AM will provide ongoing updates on strike out
totals.) For a half inning during each home game there will be signage directly behind home plate plugging "StrikeOutCancer.com and Genentech BioOncology."
The newly created Web site serves as an information resource for cancer patients and their families, and also supports The Wellness Community. Nationwide, more than one million
Americans are diagnosed with cancer each year and another 500,000 die from the disease. If current trends continue, cancer will become the leading cause of death in the U.S. by
2010, according to American Cancer Society. In the nine-county Bay Area region, there are more than 28,000 new cases of cancer diagnosed and more than 11,000 deaths each year.
"Since one out of three Americans are affected by cancer -- and even more people in the Bay Area - there are lot of people who need to be reminded about the services we
provide," says Mariana Moore, executive director of the San Francisco chapter of The Wellness Community. "As a small community services program we don't have a marketing budget or
PR staff, so we have to come up with creative ways to get our message out. [The campaign] is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity because we're raising money but also getting the word
out."
On Opening Day the Giants held a press conference to talk about changes at SBC Park, and led off with information about the "Strike Out Cancer" program. The local network
affiliates, the East Bay Times, the Oakland Tribune and the San Francisco Chronicle all ran items on the campaign. Genentech and the Giants are hoping to recruit Kevin Richardson,
of the Backstreet Boys, whose father died of cancer, to sing the national anthem sometime this season and help spread the word about The Wellness Community.
On September 5, toward the end of the season, Genentech and the Giants will host "Strike Out Cancer Day" at SBC Park to honor cancer survivors and educate others to lean more
about dealing with the disease. Fans will get information on cancer resources and how to support these resources through donations to the Wellness Community.
Contacts: Neil Cohen, 650.225.8681, [email protected]; Mariana Moore, 925.933.0107, [email protected]