For the fourth year in a row, Kneaders Bakery & Café is bringing hope to the fight against childhood cancer with a special initiative during Childhood Cancer Awareness Month. The bakery-café chain is working with HOPE Fights Childhood Cancer (HOPE FCC) to raise $135,000 for research.

From September 9-28, Kneaders is selling elephant-shaped sugar cookies that are dipped in white chocolate and covered in sprinkles. 100 percent of the sales from each cookie sale goes to benefit Dr. Josh Schiffman's Childhood Cancer Research at the Huntsman Cancer Institute. 

Customers can also donate online at hope.kneaders.com, order cookies for shipping anywhere in the world, and find merchandise such as stuffed elephants and socks.

The significance of the elephant cookie design is that Dr. Schiffman’s team has been working to exploring a cancer-fighting elephant protein called p53, which helps protect elephants from developing cancer. Humans only have two copies of p53, and some children that get cancer only have one copy of p53 in their DNA. Dr. Schiffman and his research team have been working to bring the discovery to human trial.

There are over 43 children diagnosed with cancer each day, including the grandson of Kneaders Bakery & Café co-founders Colleen and Gary Worthington. In the past four years, Kneaders Bakery & Café has raised $490,300 for HOPE FCC.

“Watching our grandson go through cancer treatment and missing a normal childhood was heartbreaking. Every day at Kneaders Bakery & Café, I'm surrounded by grandmothers and mothers that are affected by childhood cancer, just like me. I want to bring hope to them by helping fund the innovative research by Dr. Schiffman and his team at the Huntsman Cancer Institute,” says Colleen Worthington.

“It always brings joy to my heart to learn that our community covering eight states cares so much about fighting cancer and has joined us in funding the research that can help families around the world who are affected by childhood cancer,” says Worthington.