Cookie sales to assist search for cancer cure
With Childhood Cancer Awareness month coming to a close, community members who stop by one of the two Yuma Kneaders Bakery & Café locations and purchase an elephant sugar cookie will be contributing to research being conducted to help combat the disease.
One-hundred percent of the proceeds from elephant sugar cookie sales during the month of September will benefit the research of oncologist, hematologist, teen cancer survivor and cancer researcher Joshua Schiffman at the Huntsman Cancer Institute, which is affiliated with the University of Utah.
Schiffman is studying how p53, a protein encoded by the TP53 tumor suppressor gene, plays a role in cancer resistance and hopes to develop and test effective treatments for cancer.
According to the University of Utah Health webpage, Schiffman, along with colleagues, found 40 copies of the TP53 gene upon examining cancer-related genes in the African elephant genome.
Each copy amounts to two alleles (variant forms of a gene), which means that African elephants have 20 times the number of TP53 alleles compared to humans, the web page explains.
So far the Kneaders Bakery & Café “Hope Fights Childhood Cancer” campaign, which has a goal of $300,000, has raised more than $167,700.
The Yuma stores have contributed $3,997 to the campaign.
“If Kneaders can help raise awareness to support funds for research like Dr. Schiffman’s, then we will fight for that opportunity,” CEO of Kneaders Bakery & Café James Worthington told the Yuma Sun. “We have amazing customers in Yuma. Some of them have shared their personal cancer experiences with us on social media and in person, and we honor those experiences and the trust that they have in us to fight for them, because a little hope can make a big difference.”
Every day in the United States, 36 children are diagnosed with cancer, according to the Arizona Cancer Foundation for Children Kid’s Cancer Facts web page. In Arizona, one child is diagnosed with the disease each day.
In a statement to the Yuma Sun, Nate Clifton, store operator at the Kneaders Bakery & Café on Avenue B, said the local community “has been incredible in its support of the Hope Fights Childhood (Cancer) Campaign.”
“What we’ve seen through the response is that everyone really does know someone who has been touched by cancer,” Clifton stated. “When our customers purchase a cookie, they share their stories with us about someone they love who has fought the disease. What we’ve seen through their stories, is that cancer doesn’t discriminate. At the end of the day, our customers are hopeful that the research this campaign supports could produce a legitimate end to cancer one day.”
The two Yuma Kneaders Bakery & Café locations will offer a buy-one-share one option (two for $3.99) on elephant sugar cookies until Saturday, Sept. 30. Both locations’ operating hours for those days are from 7 a.m. to 10 p.m.
The two eateries in Yuma are located at 2851 S. Avenue B and 1651 S. Castle Dome Ave.
In addition to the cookies, Kneaders will offer campaign items for the rest of the year online at Kneaders.com/hope. A portion of proceeds from retail items sold will be donated to Schiffman and his team.
For more information on Schiffman’s research, visit http://uofuhealth.utah. edu/huntsman/labs/schiffman/research/.