BARKE SALE in a Box Help Beat Kid & Dog Cancers

The Canines-N-Kids Foundation (CNK), a Loudoun-based nonprofit working to put an end to the cancers kids and man’s best friend both develop, is encouraging youth and other groups to host a BARKE SALE and is providing a tool kit with step-by-step instructions. Using the traditional bake sale model, a BARKE SALE enables anyone, anywhere to raise awareness and funds for cancer research that can speed up the development of better medicines and a cure for both by offering tasty pet and people treats.

“Through this fun and educational program, we are empowering kids to help other kids and their pet friends beat cancer,” said Ulrike Szalay, executive director and founder of Canines-N-Kids. “We want kids and communities to organize BARKE SALEs to help raise needed research funds as well as awareness about how dogs and children share many of the same cancers.”

The Canines-N-Kids’ BARKE SALE gives youth, volunteer, service groups, and even corporations a tangible way to come together for a unique event featuring goodies for people and pets, and to help raise funds for research that can crush cancer at both ends of the leash. The Foundation offers a free BARKE SALE kit containing flyers, postcards and a step-by-step instruction guide. Or, for a small fee, there is a new “BARKE SALE in a Box,” a turnkey toolkit which includes everything from the online kit as well as cookie cutters, a poster, recipes, stickers and more. Groups interested in holding a BARKE SALE need to register on the Foundation’s web site—www.CaninesNKids.org—to receive their supplies.

According to the American Cancer Society, cancer is the number one cause of disease-related death in children. Nearly 16,000 children in the US will be diagnosed with cancer this year and yet only four drugs have been approved for kids’ cancers the past 40 years. Only four percent of NIH’s budget, and almost no pharma dollars are invested in kids’ cancer today.

For the six million canine patients diagnosed with cancer each year, the outlook is no better. Nearly half of all canines die from cancer. There is little movement behind new (or better) treatments for either of these vulnerable groups. Several cancers develop in both kids and man’s best friend such as bone cancer, brain cancer, lymphoma and leukemia. In many cases, these cancers are biologically similar or even indistinguishable between kids and dogs, and also far more prevalent in man’s best friend.

Funds raised through a BARKE SALE will support the Foundation’s work to promote the promising science of comparative oncology – studying and treating spontaneously developing cancer in canine patients when they get sick. The research can help doctors better understand and accelerate the development of better medicines and a cure for kids with those same cancers.