Major League Baseball All-Stars Curt Schilling And Johan Santana Team Up To Promote Sun-Safety In Minnesota

Friday, May 4th, 2007 at 2:43 pm · Blog

MINNEAPOLIS, MN — Boston Red Sox pitcher Curt Schilling and Minnesota Twins pitcher Johan Santana are use to match­ing up against each other on the base­ball field, but today they used their celebrity sta­tus to spread the word about pro­tect­ing your skin. Both all-star pitch­ers have been deeply affected by melanoma, the most deadly form of skin can­cer. They are now work­ing together to edu­cate chil­dren about respon­si­ble sun behav­ior through the SunWise with SHADE Poster Contest.

In January, Johan Santana lost a per­sonal friend, Lynne Greenberg, the wife of his base­ball agent Ed Greenberg, to the dis­ease. Curt Schilling’s wife Shonda is a five year melanoma sur­vivor and founder of the SHADE Foundation of America, a skin can­cer aware­ness non­profit that edu­cates chil­dren about sun-safety. Statistics indi­cate one in five kids will grow up to have skin can­cer. Melanoma is the lead­ing cause of can­cer deaths among women ages 25 – 29.

“Melanoma is a dev­as­tat­ing dis­ease that can destroy lives. It is a tragedy to see a fam­ily lose their mother to skin can­cer as I saw this past off sea­son,” said Johan Santana, the SunWise with SHADE ambas­sador in Minnesota. “So many peo­ple don’t real­ize melanoma can kill you. Changing the atti­tude of our soci­ety towards sun expo­sure, espe­cially among our chil­dren can help save lives by elim­i­nat­ing future cases of the disease.”

During a press con­fer­ence today at the Metrodome before open­ing a series between the Red Sox and the Twins, Schilling & Santana encour­aged chil­dren in kinder­garten to 8th grade to learn basic sun-safe rules and enter the SunWise with SHADE poster con­test. The con­test calls for kids to draw a poster that reflects respon­si­ble sun expo­sure behavior.

  • Do not burn and avoid sun tan­ning and tan­ning beds
  • Generously apply sun­screen (SPF 15+)
  • Wear pro­tec­tive cloth­ing– sun­glasses, hats and full length shirts and pants
  • Seek shade and be extra care­ful near reflec­tive sur­faces includ­ing water, snow and sand
  • Watch for the UV Index– a mea­sure of UV inten­sity included in many weather forecasts

Youngsters in grades k-8 from each state com­pete for state prizes. One win­ner is selected for each state and is entered into the national poster con­test to win a trip to Disney World. The state prize for Minnesota is a chance to meet Johan Santana and watch a Minnesota Twins game in addi­tion to a $250 sav­ings bond and a $500 SHADE Grant to the winner’s school. Posters must be received by May 31, 2007 and sent to SHADE Foundation, 10510 North 92nd Street, Suite 100, Scottsdale, AZ 85258.

SHADE Foundation of America is a 501-C3 launched by Shonda Schilling, the wife of Boston Red Sox Pitcher, Curt Schilling in 2002. The goal of the foun­da­tion is to erad­i­cate melanoma through the edu­ca­tion of chil­dren and the com­mu­nity in the pre­ven­tion and detec­tion of skin can­cer and the pro­mo­tion of sun safety.

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