The Children's Melanoma Prevention Foundation is a non-profit educational foundation established in 2003 to deliver a comprehensive sun safety and melanoma awareness program, free of charge, to school children in Massachusetts. The Children's Melanoma Prevention Foundation was created to aggressively focus attention on the need to teach "prevention" or "sun protection" to children, and their caregivers. Our Foundation recognizes that the world can be a frightening enough place without making the sun an enemy. We wanted to teach children simple ways that they could protect themselves from the adverse effects of excessive sunlight. Our foundation has designed its programs to identify environmental factors that have contributed to the increased risk for sun damage, while at the same time exploring inherent risk factors that contribute to an individual's own sun sensitivity.
The Children's Melanoma Prevention Foundation has three specific goals:
- To increase student knowledge about the risks of excessive ultraviolet exposure from both sunlight and indoor tanning.
- To encourage children to practice SunAWARE™ behaviors.
- To reduce the incidence of skin cancer in every segment of our society.
"The tools that this organization has provided have been wonderful in illustrating the invisible UV radiation present in our environment." Megan Coneys, Teacher, 5th grade, Derby Academy, Hingham, Massachusetts
The founder of the Children's Melanoma Prevention Foundation, Maryellen Maguire-Eisen, has been an oncology nurse for twenty-five years. While working at the Dana Farber Cancer Institute, she decided to specialize in skin oncology. She trained as a nurse practitioner, focusing on the prevention and early detection of skin cancer. Ms. Maguire-Eisen is acutely aware of the terrible impact of skin cancer on patients and their families. She has cared for many people struggling with the life threatening diagnosis of malignant melanoma, and provided terminal care to patients with both melanoma and non-melanoma skin cancer. Ms. Maguire-Eisen is determined to reduce the risk of this preventable disease in children by providing educational programs that inform children, parents and teachers about the risks of overexposure to the sun's UV rays.
"One parent told me that she knew that her daughter had gotten the message when sunscreen was the first item that she packed for her family vacation." Sherri Nichols RN, School Nurse, Holy Family School in Rockland, Massachusetts.To achieve our sun safe vision, the Children's Melanoma Prevention Foundation has developed a specific, tactical, sun safety program that is targeted at school children from pre-k through twelfth grade. This activist, in classroom approach, is called the SunAWARE™ program, and during the 2005-2006 school year, more than 50,000 students have actively participated in classroom presentations and projects provided by the Children's Melanoma Prevention Foundation. Additionally, the foundation has partnered with the Environmental Protection Agency's SunWise Program, and uses select elements of their standards based multi-level curriculum. This blended program combines elements of science, health care, and fun, while stressing the importance of sun safety and skin cancer prevention. When it comes to skin cancer it is important to remember that, an ounce of prevention truly is worth a pound of cure.
"Your informational sessions, classroom programs, and sun safety stations at Field Day have certainly raised people's awareness of the need for sun safety." Paul Daly, Athletic Director, Derby Academy, Hingham, Massachusetts.Our Board of Directors is comprised of many talented individuals committed to making a difference in skin cancer prevention. They come from a variety of backgrounds including nursing, medicine, education, business, and journalism. Learn more about them and why they joined our organization.