Childhood Cancer Awareness Stamp
Tuesday, May 13, 2008

Please help us honor our children by participating in a writing campaign to attempt to get a stamp approved for childhood cancer.

Currently, there are stamps for breast and prostate cancer, diabetes, organ donation and hospice. Each year, the citizen's stamp advisory committee reviews stamp subjects that are submitted by the public. They have thousands that are suggested. They will only consider "events and themes of widespread national appeal and significance". It is quite possible that they do not know the widespread national significance of childhood cancer.

We are asking each of you - family members of children with cancer, childhood cancer patients, survivors, friends and care-givers to help us tell them that childhood cancer is the number one disease killer of children in our country, and that the number of kids being diagnosed with cancer is increasing.

• Let us tell them that treatment can take up to two or three years.
• Let us tell them that one in 900 young adults is a survivor of childhood cancer.
• Let us tell them that childhood cancer is significant!

For more information visit the Committee to Establish a Childhood Cancer Awareness Stamp web site at www.kidscancerstamp.org.

Please send a letter in support of a childhood cancer stamp to:

Citizens Stamp Advisory Committee
c/o Stamp Development
U.S. Postal Service
475 L'Enfant Plaza, SW, Room 5670
Washington, D.C. 20260-2437

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Dear Advisory Committee, I/We respectfully submit for your consideration and approval, the proposal of a "Childhood Cancer Awareness" postage stamp. As parents whose lives have been forever changed by this disease, we hope that this stamp could be given designation as a symbol for childhood cancer awareness. By age 20, one child or teen in 330 is diagnosed with cancer. Each year, 12,400 new cases of childhood cancer are diagnosed in the United States. Each school day, 46 children or two entire classrooms of children are diagnosed with cancer. Each day researchers, scientists and physicians come a little closer to finding successful treatments for many childhood cancers, yet approximately 2,300 children and adolescents die each year. More children die of cancer than of any other disease, including asthma, diabetes, cystic fibrosis, congenital anomalies and AIDS, combined. Treatment for childhood cancer is intense, often lasting several years of precious childhood. While more and more of our children are surviving their cancers, they emerge from their hard-fought battles to be then faced with the late effects of their treatment. These effects can range from mild learning difficulties to severe multiple disabilities, both physical and cognitive. Our children often pay a high price for their survival. Motivated by the extraordinary success of the breast cancer stamp, the existence of a "Childhood Cancer Awareness" stamp would serve to promote the awareness of this disease that is plaguing our children. No parent ever wants to hear the words, "Your child has cancer." Yet one in 330 families in the United States are handed this fate. Mine included. Please help to promote the necessary advocacy for awareness and research that a "Childhood Cancer Stamp" would provide. Thank you very much for your consideration. Sincerely,

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