Local Holmes Hyundai dealers and representatives from Hyundai Motor America presented a Hope Grant in the amount of $100,000 to Blank Children's Hospital today. The donation will be used for our cancer center to start a pediatric cancer survivorship program. The new program will be the first program of its kind in the state of Iowa and will provide long-range follow-up for survivors of childhood cancers.

"Truly, this program would not be possible without the generous support of Hyundai Hope on Wheels," said Dr. Wendy Woods-Swafford, pediatric hematologist-oncologist. "Our whole cancer team is thrilled to be able to develop a program that has been a dream for many years. The program will impact children and families now, and into the future."

 September is Childhood Cancer Awareness Month - to commemorate it, Hyundai Hope on Wheels worked to raise awareness of childhood cancer with a national television commercial about this issue, materials in its dealerships and donations totaling $6.8 million to help fight childhood cancer.  The donations were given as "Hope Grants" to hospitals and nonprofit organizations across the country.  Hyundai Motor America and its dealers joined the fight against childhood cancer in 1998 and created a program called Hyundai Hope on Wheels. At the end of this year, Hope on Wheels will have donated more than $23 million to fight childhood cancer.  For more information about the program please visit www.hyundaihopeonwheels.org.

 Childhood cancer remains the leading cause of death by disease among U.S. children 1 to 14 years of age.  Every day approximately 40 children, the equivalent of a school classroom, are diagnosed with cancer, which adds up to almost 15,000 new cases of childhood cancer diagnosed each year.