Cancer Center partners with schools for annual football game

AUGUSTA, Ga. – The Georgia Cancer Center at Augusta University will partner with the Press On Fund, Episcopal Day School and Saint Mary on the Hill Catholic School for the Sixth Annual Battle of the Hill football game. The game, held in support of Press On, a fund created to support pediatric cancer research. This year’s game will feature the official launch of Press On’s Play It Forward campaign, a Links for Life presentation by the EDS student body and appearances by Augusta University mascots. The honorary team captains will be physicians from the Georgia Cancer Center.

“We are very excited to be a part of what has become a beloved Augusta tradition,” said Dr. Samir N. Khleif, Director of the Georgia Cancer Center. “We see it as an opportunity to share with the community not only the groundbreaking work we are doing in the field of pediatric cancer, but all cancers.”

Play It Forward is a social media campaign that asks people to tape themselves doing something they love, tagging friends and then donating $5 – one dollar for each year of remission before a patient is considered cancer-free – at pressonfund.org/playitforward.

Links for Life can be purchased at EDS and at halftime, those links will be stretched across the field, symbolically representing participants connecting to find a cure for cancer.

The Battle of the Hill football game takes place Thursday, Aug. 25, at 6 p.m. at Richmond Academy Stadium, 910 Russell St. Admission is $5 adults and $2 children.

About the Press On Fund

The Press On Fund was founded by Stephen and Erin Chance in 2006, when their son Patrick was diagnosed with neuroblastoma — a rare type of cancer that affects nerve cells. After a long and courageous battle, Patrick died in 2012.

In 2009, Turner and Tara Simkins joined Press On after their son Brennan was diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia, or AML, a fast-growing blood cancer. Following years of care and an unprecedented four bone marrow transplants, Brennan is in remission.

Press On is a field of interest fund under The Community Foundation for the Central Savannah River Area‘s nonprofit umbrella. Press On invests in medical research focused on novel and less toxic therapies for neuroblastoma and AML, two deadly pediatric cancers. pressonfund.org

About the Georgia Cancer Center

The Georgia Cancer Center at Augusta University is a multidisciplinary academic cancer center with a mission to reduce the burden of cancer in Georgia and across the globe through superior care, innovation and education. Its patient-centered approach includes first-in-the-nation treatment protocols, an experimental therapeutics program and specialized clinics for state-of-the-art drug and immunotherapy clinical trials. augusta.edu/cancer