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News Release

July 25, 2008

Contact: Chris DeFrancesco, 860-679-3914
e-mail: cdefrancesco@uchc.edu

12-Year-Old Raises More Than $7,000 for Cancer Research

FARMINGTON, CONN. – Like most 12-year-old boys, Matthew Yellin likes sports, swimming and computer games. He also likes raising money for cancer research.

Matthew, of Farmington, Conn., and Delray Beach, Fla., has raised more than $7,000 to support the 31st annual Cancer Research Golf Tournament to benefit the University of Connecticut Health Center.

Proceeds from the event, held on Aug. 4, 2008, at the Golf Club of Avon, will support the Carole and Ray Neag Comprehensive Cancer Center at the UConn Health Center. Among the activities at this year’s event will be a raffle drawing for prizes including a 42-inch flat-screen television, a laptop computer, a digital camera, a GPS system, and a wine cooler.

Yellin, a seventh-grader at Saint Andrews Middle School in Boca Raton, Fla., has sold more than 700 raffle tickets as part of his Bar Mitzvah good deeds project.

"I am trying to raise money for people who have cancer and need a solution," he says. “I think everyone can do a little for such a great cause.”

Before Matthew left for summer camp this year, he wrote and sent letters to friends and relatives across more than a half-dozen states, and asked them to buy the tickets for $10 each or as a book for $100. The ticket sales flowed in faster than he ever imagined they would.

"The response to the raffle has been amazing,” he says. “I am happy that I can help improve the lives of cancer patients through it.”

The proceeds from this year’s golf tournament will go toward the acquisition of a new hyperthermic intraperitoneal chemotherapy system for the Neag Comprehensive Cancer Center. This therapy, also known as HIPEC, enables physicians to deliver chemotherapy to difficult-to-reach cancerous cells.

In its 30-year history, the UConn Cancer Research Golf Tournament has raised more than $2 million for the UConn Health Center and the American Cancer Society, including $150,000 last year to expand the public tumor bank the UConn Health Center established in 2002. The fundraiser is organized and run entirely by volunteers.

UConn Health includes the schools of medicine and dental medicine, the UConn Medical Group, University Dentists, and John Dempsey Hospital. Home to Bioscience Connecticut, UConn Health pursues a mission of providing outstanding health care education in an environment of exemplary patient care, research and public service. More information about UConn Health is available at www.uchc.edu.

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