(NEW ORLEANS, LA) – This week, Team Draft co-founder and former San Francisco Forty-Niners linebacker, Chris Draft, is bringing Team Draft’s National Campaign to Change the Face of Lung Cancer to New Orleans. Draft, who lost his wife, Keasha, to lung cancer in December 2011, will be announcing on “Radio Row” the debut of a new public awareness video designed to dispel some of the myths and misconceptions about this misunderstood disease.
Produced in partnership with Catch It In Time (www.catchitintime.org), the video highlights the lack of awarenessabout lung cancer. It features Draft asking people on the street which cancer is the biggest killer of women, men and overall. While most people said that breast cancer kills more women, that prostate cancer more men, and that skin cancer kills more people overall than any other cancers, the fact is lung cancer takes more lives than breast, cervical and prostate cancer combined and kills more people than any other cancer. The video is designed to raise public awareness by shining a light on the true facts about this deadly disease and inviting people to share those facts.
The video is part of Team Draft’s National Campaign to Change the Face of Lung Cancer, which we launched at last year’s Super Bowl in Indianapolis. To see the video, share the facts, and donate to support the National Campaign visit www.teamdraft.org.
While in New Orleans, Team Draft will also tour the Stanley S. Scott Cancer Center on Thursday, January 31, as part of its National Campaign. Team Draft will sit down with lung cancer survivors Johnnie Brumfield and Madeline Borrouso.
Mr. Brumfield was one of several lung cancer survivors who participated in Team Draft’s Survivor at Every Stadium initiative this year. Working with teams throughout the NFL, Team Draft led this national effort to have lung cancer survivors (like Mr. Brumfield), researchers and doctors attend games across the country. As part of Team Draft’s National Campaign to Change the Face of Lung Cancer, the Survivor at Every Stadium initiative is designed to raise awareness, give hope to those battling the disease, and shine a light on the important work being done at cancer research and treatment centers around the country. This year’s initiative capped off at the Pro Bowl in Hawaii on January 27.
As Team Draft’s guest at the Taste of the NFL’s Party With a Purpose, Ms. Borrouso (who is a caterer) will be able to meet some of the top chefs in the country. This strolling food and wine festival, which supports the fight against hunger, will take place at the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center on Saturday, February 2. Doors open at 7:00 pm.Team Draft, an initiative of the Chris Draft Family Foundation, is dedicated to raising lung cancer awareness and increasing badly needed research funding by shattering the misconception that lung cancer is a “smoker’s disease.” The fact is, anybody can get lung cancer. Yet, despite the fact that between 20,000 and 30,000 people who have never smoked—including Keasha and Abby—are diagnosed with lung cancer in the United States each year, the smoking stigma negatively impacts lung cancer research funding, which pales in comparison to funding for other major cancers and diseases.
Team Draft is out to change all that. “If we can take away the stigma that says you have to be a smoker to get lung cancer, we have a real chance to educate people about the true nature of the disease,” explains Draft.
Since Chris and Keasha launched Team Draft at their wedding in November of 2011, Team Draft has been on a mission to tackle cancer. “Our hope is not only to positively impact research funding, but to improve the quality of life for those affected by lung cancer,” says Draft. “We aren’t fighting against lung cancer, we’re fighting for people. That’s why we are leading this national campaign to change the face of lung cancer.