Saturday, October 16, 2010

Saks Fifth Avenue, Chevy Chase, Teams Up with Suburban Hospital for KEY TO THE CURE Charity Shopping

To help raise both money and awareness for women’s cancers, Saks Fifth Avenue in Chevy Chase, Maryland, will partner with Bethesda, Maryland-based Suburban Hospital, a member of Johns Hopkins Medicine, to host the 2010 KEY TO THE CURE, a charity shopping weekend taking place Thursday, October 21, through Sunday, October 24. That overlaps with Friends & Family. Great time to shop!

Saks Fifth Avenue will donate 2% of sales during the shopping weekend, up to $500,000, to support women’s cancer programs at Suburban Hospital. Saks will also make a donation of $375,000 to The Breast Cancer Research Foundation.

To launch this year’s event, Saks Fifth Avenue in Chevy Chase will host a KEY TO THE CURE kick-off celebration on Thursday, October 21, featuring a fashion show by Belafigura, cocktails, culinary samplings by some of the top restaurants in the area, prizes, raffles, and, of course, shopping! Saks Fifth Avenue Chevy Chase and Suburban Hospital will honor remarkable cancer survivors from the Washington, DC area, including honorary chair and breast cancer survivor Tanya Snyder, official spokesperson for the NFL's campaign A Crucial Catch: Annual Screening Saves Lives.

Saks will also offer a limited-edition KEY TO THE CURE T-shirt designed by Donna Karan, available beginning Friday, October 1, and retailing for $35 in Saks stores, Saks Fifth Avenue OFF 5TH stores, and at Saks.com. One hundred percent of the purchase price of each shirt sold will be donated to local charity partners.

Actress Uma Thurman is the 2010 Ambassador for Saks Fifth Avenue’s KEY TO THE CURE. In support of this program, Ms. Thurman will appear in a national public service announcement (PSA) wearing the Donna Karan limited-edition T-shirt. The KEY TO THE CURE PSA will appear in major fashion and lifestyle magazines in September and October.

Saks Fifth Avenue initiated its charity shopping weekend in 1999. Since then, the company has donated over $33 million to women’s cancer research and treatment organizations throughout the United States. Organizations benefiting from these funds include: The Breast Cancer Research Foundation, Entertainment Industry Foundation’s Women’s Cancer Research Fund, Cleveland Clinic, Boston’s Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Nevada Cancer Institute, and many others.

DC-area gals: this is the time to shop! Ask for a Friends & Family discount while you are there - and make sure to look for the Armani Beauty Team! If you don't live near DC, check out your local Saks to see what they're doing to support the cause.

Update 10/17: Just got this via e-mail. Shop at Saks Tysons Galleria Thursday through Sunday (same dates as above) and 2% of sales will go to Life with Cancer.

2 comments:

Eileen said...

I love it when we can go about our shopping knowing that the stores and product manufacturers will be donating a percentage to such worthy causes. All they ask of us in return is to do the thing we'd normally do anyway--buy their products and goods. It's such an easy way to give be it big bucks or small change. And, whether it's for research into cancer, heart disease, or any of the other medical conditions that assail the human race, it gladdens my heart to see so many people being generous with their time and money even though they are in the midst of economic hardship themselves. Surely there is a reward for such generosity.

Charlestongirl said...

Eileen,

I couldn't have said it better. Usually, I pass on plain-vanilla press releases, but I won't pass up an opportunity to promote a good cause like this one. You're right...it's something we would do anyhow, and there's a reward for someone at the end of our shopping. If even one woman is helped by one of the recipient hospitals, our makeup purchases will have brought a thousand-fold reward.