9th Annual Tree Lighting Marks Growing Programs to Benefit Fox Chase Cancer Center Patients

    PHILADELPHIA, Nov. 18 /PRNewswire/ -- Patients, friends and staff of Fox
 Chase Cancer Center will celebrate a growing program to benefit patient care
 at the comprehensive cancer center Wednesday, November 19, at 5 p.m., when the
 ninth annual Tree of Life lighting will take place in the Center courtyard.
 The public is invited to attend.
     Sponsored by the Friends of the Hospital of Fox Chase Cancer Center, the
 Tree of Life last year earned more than $20,000 in donations for individual
 lights at $5 each (or $100 for stars) to honor a friend or relative or
 remember a loved one who died.  In this year's ceremony, two trees will be
 lighted.
     "Our 1997 Tree of Life and Tree of Growth will celebrate not only past and
 present cancer patients but also healthy people at high risk of cancer, who
 may be able to avoid the disease through new prevention techniques we are
 developing," said Dr. Paul F. Engstrom of Ambler, Pa., Fox Chase senior vice
 president for population science, who will light the tree this year.
     "Placing a light upon the tree may be a way of saying thanks for care, for
 health or for love," said Friends president Karen Havelin, R.N., of
 Churchville, Pa.  "It may be a light of remembrance or a light of hope."
 Names of donors and those honored are listed in the Friends' Book of Honor, on
 display year-round in the Center's outpatient waiting area.
     Engstrom, Havelin and others will make brief remarks in the Center
 cafeteria before the lighting ceremony.  A dessert buffet donated by Country
 Club Restaurant of Northeast Philadelphia will follow.
     Dr. Engstrom's research division includes a growing number of scientists
 focused on cancer-prevention studies.  A $38 million Prevention Campaign is
 now under way to add 11 new programs of prevention research and build a new
 facility that will house both research laboratories and prevention-oriented
 services for men and women.
 
 

SOURCE  Fox Chase Cancer Center