Marcia Cross Stars In New PSA About Prostate Cancer With The Safeway Foundation And Stand Up To Cancer

LOS ANGELES and NEW YORK, May 22, 2013 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The Safeway Foundation and Stand Up To Cancer (SU2C), a program of the Entertainment Industry Foundation (EIF), have teamed up to develop a print, radio and digital public service announcement featuring actress and SU2C Ambassador Marcia Cross. The PSA is designed to increase awareness for the fight against prostate cancer.

(Photo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20130522/DC18633 )

Prostate cancer is the second-leading cause of cancer death for men in the United States and currently affects more than two million American men. One in six men will be diagnosed with prostate cancer in their lifetime.

Debuting this June, the public service campaign coincides with Safeway's annual in-store Prostate Cancer Awareness fundraiser, providing customers with multiple opportunities to give at more than 1,400 Safeway stores across the United States. The public service campaign will continue through the month, which includes the national observance of Father's Day on Sunday, June 16.

At the center of the public service campaign is a limited edition, reusable shopping bag, embossed with the words, "It starts with a wish; it can end with a cure." The bag will be available for purchase at all Safeway banner stores, including Vons, Pavilions, Tom Thumb, Randalls, Dominick's, and Carrs stores, as well as online at safewayfoundation.org. Proceeds will support accelerated prostate cancer research. Additionally, Safeway shoppers will have a chance to make a separate donation at check-out.

Emmy Award and Golden Globe nominee Marcia Cross is best known for her roles on the award-winning series Desperate Housewives and the original Melrose Place.

"I've seen too many men in my life affected by cancer," said Cross. "I am proud to be a part of the effort to support important cancer research that can save lives. My hope is that we can help increase survivorship among men affected by prostate cancer."

"We are thrilled to collaborate with our friends at Stand Up To Cancer and Marcia Cross to further increase awareness of prostate cancer," said Larree Renda, Chair of The Safeway Foundation. "Stand Up To Cancer's scientists are taking cancer research to the next level and we are committed to helping them in their effort to make meaningful advances in patient care."

The collaborative campaign represents a continued dedication to prostate cancer research and awareness for both The Safeway Foundation and SU2C.

The Safeway Foundation's donation to SU2C helps fund two Dream Teams focused on prostate cancer. The first team's project, titled "Precision Therapy for Advanced Prostate Cancer," is led by Arul M. Chinnaiyan, M.D., Ph.D., S.P. Hicks endowed professor of pathology and professor of urology at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, and Charles L. Sawyers, M.D., chairman of the Human Oncology and Pathogenesis Program at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center. The second Dream Team project, titled "Targeting Adaptive Pathways in Metastatic Treatment-Resistant Prostate Cancer," is led by Eric J. Small, M.D., professor of medicine and urology and chief of the division of hematology and oncology at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF), and Owen N. Witte, M.D., distinguished professor of microbiology, immunology and molecular genetics at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), and distinguished professor of molecular and medical pharmacology at UCLA's David Geffen School of Medicine. In total, these two teams have 109 scientists at 22 institutions.

To date, Safeway and The Safeway Foundation have raised $84.5 million for the Prostate Cancer Foundation, the world's largest philanthropic source of support for prostate cancer research. Those donations, provided by Safeway's generous customers, have helped fund 1,600 prostate cancer research projects providing hope for treatment and cures.

Since 2008, the Prostate Cancer Foundation has funded nearly 100 cancer investigators (in 7 countries and 44 cancer centers) whose innovative research ideas are accelerating discovery and progress.

New advances in early detection funded by The Safeway Foundation include a urine test to detect a unique piece of DNA found only in prostate cancer cells that can now be detected.  This test has the potential to catch prostate cancer many years earlier than it has typically been detected in the past. Together with a PSA test and a checkup, it will help doctors determine who has prostate cancer and thus prevent patients from undergoing unnecessary biopsies.

"We're profoundly grateful to Marcia Cross and the Safeway Foundation for helping us spur more important conversations about prostate cancer, and for making it so easy for the public to support research that will lead to newer, more effective therapies," said Lisa Paulsen, co-founder of Stand Up To Cancer and CEO of the Entertainment Industry Foundation (EIF).

For more information on the campaign, visit safewayfoundation.org or standup2cancer.org. To join the conversation, like us on Facebook at @StandUpToCancer or follow us on Twitter at @SU2C.

About Safeway
Safeway Inc. is a Fortune 100 company and one of the largest food and drug retailers in North America, based on sales. The company operates 1,641 stores in the United States and western Canada and had annual sales of $44.2 billion in 2012. The company's common stock is traded on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol SWY.

About The Safeway Foundation
Founded in 2001, The Safeway Foundation supports causes that impact our customers' lives. Our stores provide the opportunity to mobilize funding and create awareness in our neighborhoods through our employees' passion, partnerships with our vendors, and the generous contributions by our customers. We focus on giving locally in the areas of health and human services, hunger relief, education and helping people with disabilities. Safeway Inc. and The Safeway Foundation has invested $1 billion in our neighborhoods since 2001. For more information about The Safeway Foundation, visit www.safewayfoundation.org.

About Stand Up To Cancer
Stand Up To Cancer – an initiative of the Entertainment Industry Foundation, a non-profit organization – began in the USA in 2008 with a landmark telecast on the ABC, CBS and NBC networks. The third U.S.-based telecast was broadcast on ABC, CBS, NBC, FOX and 22 cable networks on Sept. 7, 2012. Internationally, in addition to the Netherlands, Stand Up To Cancer launched in the United Kingdom with a four-hour live televised fundraiser on Channel 4 in collaboration with Cancer Research U.K. on Oct. 17, 2012.

Stand Up To Cancer raises funds to hasten the pace of groundbreaking translational research that can get new therapies to patients quickly and save lives. SU2C marshals the resources of the media and entertainment industries in the fight against this disease. Current members of the SU2C Council of Founders and Advisors (CFA) include Talk Show Host, Journalist and well-known Cancer Advocate Katie Couric; Sherry Lansing, Chairperson of the Entertainment Industry Foundation's Board of Directors and Founder of the Sherry Lansing Foundation; EIF President and CEO Lisa Paulsen; EIF Senior Vice President Kathleen Lobb; Rusty Robertson and Sue Schwartz of the Robertson Schwartz Agency; Pamela Oas Williams, President of Laura Ziskin Productions and Executive Producer of Stand Up To Cancer's In-house Production Team, and Nonprofit Executive Ellen Ziffren. All current members of the CFA were co-producers of the 2012 televised special. The late co-founder Laura Ziskin executive produced both the Sept. 5, 2008, and Sept. 10, 2010, broadcasts. SU2C was formally launched on May 27, 2008. Sung Poblete, Ph.D., R.N., has served as SU2C's president and CEO since 2011.

SU2C's "Dream Team" approach to funding translational cancer research enables scientists from different disciplines at research centers across the country and internationally to collaborate on projects geared toward getting new, less toxic treatments to patients as quickly as possible. Monies also support innovative cancer research projects that are often deemed "too risky" by conventional funding sources. One hundred and one institutions are currently involved. As SU2C's scientific collaborator, the American Association for Cancer Research, led by a prestigious SU2C Scientific Advisory Committee, provides scientific oversight, expert review of the research projects and grants administration. For more information, visit standup2cancer.org.

Media Contacts:
SU2C
Kristen Bothwell, Rubenstein Communications
(212) 843-9227
[email protected]

Sheri Goldberg, ID PR
646-723-3800
[email protected]

Safeway Inc.
Brian Dowling
925-467-3787
[email protected]

SOURCE The Safeway Foundation and Stand Up To Cancer