ATLANTA– Lendmark Financial Services, a leading provider of household credit and consumer loan solutions, has raised the bar for itself and launched a bold new campaign and goal: to raise $10 million total by 2025 to mark the company’s 10-year anniversary partnering with nonprofit CURE Childhood Cancer. CURE is an Atlanta-based nonprofit with national impact that is dedicated to funding targeted pediatric cancer research while supporting patients and their families.
According to CURE, childhood or pediatric cancers — cancers that occur among children and adolescents 19 years old and younger — differ from adult cancers, and the research that increases adult survival rates rarely trickles down to help children. That is why CURE dedicates more than $4.7 million annually to funding specific research projects aimed at curing cancers that affect children and adolescents.
“I am convinced that we will find a cure for childhood cancers in our lifetime, and it will be because of organizations like CURE that are focused on pediatric research and precision medicine to find personalized treatments for each child,” said Bobby Aiken, president and CEO of Lendmark Financial Services. “This cause needs more funding and better awareness, and that is why Lendmark has upped our commitment and will continue to support our nonprofit partner as it strives to heal and empower childhood cancer patients and their families.”
The need is great – The American Cancer Society reports that a staggering 10,470 children in the United States under the age of 15 will be diagnosed with cancer in 2022, and about 1,050 will die from cancer this year alone.
Lendmark began its partnership with CURE in 2016, each year holding an annual Climb to Cure fundraising and awareness campaign. These campaigns were so successful and popular with Lendmark employees, partners, and customers that the company knew that it could do even more to support the fight against childhood cancer. So the company recently set its new goal of $10 million raised by 2025.
The 2022 Climb to Cure campaign wrapped up in August with nearly $1.2 million raised for the cause, bringing Lendmark’s total donated to CURE to $4.73 million to date, nearly halfway to its $10 million goal.
“We are extremely grateful to Lendmark’s ongoing commitment to CURE through their extraordinary giving and fundraising. In just 7 years, they’ve raised $4.73 million, ensuring that critical research for children with cancer advances,” said Kristin Connor, CEO of CURE. “We truly appreciate each and every employee, partner and customer who personally gives and champions the effort, as we earmark every dollar raised by Lendmark towards CURE’s precision medicine initiative. Precision medicine offers one of the best available opportunities to save childrens’ lives and advance the fight against pediatric cancer.”
Much like previous years, for the 2022 Climb to Cure campaign, Lendmark executives, employees, partners, and friends raised money over the spring and summer. In addition to donations from individuals through Lendmark’s Climb to Cure fundraising website, employees also held online coffee, t-shirt and baseball cap sales, hosted bingo nights and BBQs, and even a golf tournament, along with other fundraisers.
Employees also gave through voluntary payroll deductions, which many opted to do.
Additionally, since extending Climb to Cure to its customers in 2021, many Lendmark customers voluntarily opted to participate by donating $1 when closing their loan. Lendmark matches the donation.
Climb to Cure also has an awareness and wellness component. Before the pandemic, the “Climb” portion of Lendmark’s Climb to Cure was a 200+ in-person event where employees ran or walked around a stadium track or climbed the stadium’s stairs, symbolically representative of the challenges that children and teens battling cancer face.
In 2020, Lendmark pivoted to follow social distancing guidelines, asking employees across the country to walk and track their steps in their respective communities. This year, Lendmark employees, family and friends continued this “virtual” month-long walk, logging over 17 million steps, blowing well past this year’s goal of 1.64 million steps.
Lendmark is CURE’s largest donor, having raised at least one-third of CURE’s commitment to advancing precision medicine, the most innovative form of treatment for children with cancer in decades, in recent years. CURE’s precision medicine initiative focuses on bringing individualized therapies and, ultimately, a safe and effective cure for all children diagnosed.
