AIT makes strides to deliver more birthdays in fight against breast cancer

On Sunday, Oct. 16, 2011, AIT-ORD employees, their families and friends gathered together along Chicago's lakefront for the 12th annual Making Strides Against Breast Cancer® walk.

Hundreds of breast cancer survivors, caregivers and supporters refused to let the rain dampen their enthusiasm at the Montrose Harbor walk site, one of 16 event locations in Illinois and 52 throughout the United States, District of Columbia and Puerto Rico.

This marked the 12th year of AIT's sponsorship support of the American Cancer Society's fight for a breast cancer cure. As a proud flagship event sponsor for Chicago’s Making Strides walk, AIT partners with the American Cancer Society annually to share the organization’s mission to save lives and create a world with more celebrated birthdays.

Since teaming with the ACS for the inaugural Making Strides event in 2000, AIT walkers have contributed more than $525,000 in their ongoing fight to increase awareness, communicate the importance of early detection and find a breast cancer cure.

"Each knockout cancer season, philanthropy at AIT increases across the network in support of our company’s largest fundraising event," said Kim Smigiel, director of marketing and communications. "This year an unpredictable, yet powerful experience resulted with the amount of support received in waves of donations, registered walkers and fundraising dollars."

President Vaughn Moore was an event speaker, taking to the stage with AIT co-founder Dan Lisowski and various members of the AIT family to explain how fighting breast cancer has been a pivotal part of AIT's corporate culture for the past 12 years. AIT presented a check to the American Cancer Society onstage in the amount of $38,895.84.

An impressive total of 291 walkers registered with Team AIT online, the highest number of participants since 2003. Of this year’s total, 99 walkers were AIT employees.

Donations from this year’s "Making Cents of Cancer" internal fundraising event, which took place on Oct. 14, played a pivotal part in AIT’s contributions to the American Cancer Society. Tickets purchased by employees for the bake sale, raffle drawing and hot dog lunch amounted to a whopping $12,323.85 – a record high since the Making Cents program was launched in 2003.

Through nationwide support received from AIT's other offices, vendors and partners in addition to walker donations and funds raised from this year's Making Cents of Cancer event, AIT has donated more than $41,000 for 2011. The grand total has yet to be determined as donations continue pouring in from employees and partners across the AIT community.

Because of these outstanding fundraising efforts, the American Cancer Society has once again named AIT one of the top 20 Making Strides teams across the nation - the only team represented from the Midwest region!

As another successful year of AIT’s sponsorship support of the Making Strides event draws to a close, the AIT charity committee and executive team would like to thank employees, customers and business partners across the global communities where we live and work for making our fight against breast cancer possible.