Giving back is part of the Pizza Hut DNA, and this month, the SDS Restaurant Group—a Pizza Hut franchise with restaurants in North Carolina– announced that it has raised $14,000 for 2015 Leukemia and Lymphoma Society (LLS) and Light the Night Walk to cure blood cancer. The money raised came from generous donations of Pizza Hut customers, managers, team members, family, and friends who purchased paper icons and participated in local fundraising events leading up to the walk in October. This marks the first year of SDS involvement with the LLS to cure blood cancer, and hopefully many more years to come!
There were 39 Pizza Hut restaurants in Eastern North Carolina who teamed up to participate in this year’s fundraising efforts, with the teams from the Goldsboro and Havelock store leading the group with the most money raised.
“We are very proud of our restaurant teams and our customers overwhelming support for this very important cause” said Ryan O’Connell, Director of Operations of SDS Restaurant Group. “We strongly believe in getting involved locally, especially since this cause is close to our hearts.”
All funds raised by SDS Restaurant Group will go to LLS, which funds research into a cure for blood cancer. LLS is the world’s largest voluntary health organization dedicated to find cures for blood cancers, and has funded more than $1 billion in blood cancer research. Thanks to research, survival rates for patients with many blood cancers have doubled, tripled and even quadrupled since the early 1960s. Despite these advances, about one third of blood cancer patients still do not survive even five years after their diagnosis, which is why more funding is needed to bring better therapies to patients, and faster.
If you’re curious about LLS, you can learn more about them and their efforts to fight blood cancers at http://www.lls.org/