Capping MIT's annual "Daffodil Days" benefit for the American Cancer Society, volunteers from the MIT Women's League and the Center for Cancer Research (CCR) will be selling daffodil bouquets in three campus locations from March 24-27.
Many members of the MIT community ordered flowers in February; those will be delivered to individual departments on March 24. Others who missed out on ordering ahead of time may buy daffodils ($5 for each 10-flower bouquet) next Tuesday through Friday from 11:30am-1:30pm in the Medical Department atrium, Lobby 10 and the Whitehead Institute lobby.
This year, the Women's League has joined CCR -- the site of pioneering work on human oncogenes and tumor suppressor genes -- during Daffodil Days in an effort to boost sales at MIT. In previous years, flowers were sold to "walk-up customers" for only one day rather than four.
According to the American Cancer Society (ACS), cancer deaths are decreasing for the first time since records were first kept in the 1930s, though lung and bronchus cancer, the top killer, is rising for women. Two-thirds of all cancer deaths can be prevented by refraining from smoking and by eating a diet high in fruits and vegetables (at least five servings a day) and low in fat, noted Janet Plotkin of the Women's League.
For more information on cancer research and prevention, see the CCR web site or the ACS web site.
A version of this article appeared in MIT Tech Talk on March 11, 1998.
