Aflac and Sunrise Association Deliver Joy to More Than 150 Children and Families Dealing With Childhood Cancer in Long Island
Company also makes $60,000 contribution to send 10 kids to camp
Originally published on Aflac Newsroom
WHEATLEY HEIGHTS, N.Y., August 10, 2022 /3BL Media/ — Aflac and Sunrise Association delivered My Special Aflac Ducks® to more than 150 children and families facing childhood cancer today at Sunrise Day Camp – Long Island in Wheatley Heights, New York, and in the following days will make My Special Aflac Duck available to Sunrise campers across the United States. The deliveries are part of a national sponsorship with Sunrise Association, whose mission is to bring back the joys of childhood to children with cancer and their siblings in the U.S. and abroad.
My Special Aflac Duck is an award-winning social robot developed by Aflac to help provide comfort, joy and distraction to children with cancer and sickle cell. It is a cornerstone of Aflac's 27-year commitment to helping children with cancer and blood disorders, which also includes more than $160 million in contributions to the Aflac Cancer and Blood Disorders Center at Children's Healthcare of Atlanta. In 2018, Time Magazine named My Special Aflac Duck one of the top 50 inventions of the year.
"We are thrilled to introduce My Special Aflac Duck to campers at the Sunrise Day Camps in Long Island and at their various camps across the country, as we have done for more than 16,000 children in the U.S., Japan and Northern Ireland since 2018," The Aflac Foundation, Inc. President Kathelen Amos said. "The Aflac Duck has become a tangible, innovative companion for children as they go through their journey. We are making an impact on such an important cause and couldn't be more proud."
In addition to making My Special Aflac Ducks available to children participating in the eight Sunrise Association camps in the U.S., Aflac will also help send 10 children to camp in the coming year through a $60,000 contribution to the organization. Sunrise Association does not charge families for their camp experiences.
"Aflac's contribution will help us to continue offering our programs to these amazing children and families without ever having to charge a fee. Their My Special Aflac Duck program also aligns perfectly with our mission to bring joy to these children through our camp experiences," said Sunrise Association's President and CEO Arnie Preminger. "We could not be more pleased with this new relationship with one of America's strongest and more purposeful brands."
Features of My Special Aflac Duck include an interactive mobile app that allows children to virtually bathe and feed their duck, customizable soundscapes that provide soothing visuals and sounds, smart sensors that enable touch and awareness of light and sounds, and a calming heartbeat and breathing vibrations. To help children express themselves, the duck also comes with seven feeling discs that, when tapped individually to a sensor on the duck's chest, prompt My Special Aflac Duck to emulate each different emotion. Since 2018, Aflac has distributed — free-of-charge — more than 16,000 My Special Aflac Ducks to children in the United States, Japan and Northern Ireland. Each unit costs the company approximately $200.
Healthcare providers, support organizations and families seeking to order My Special Aflac Duck for their children or patients 3 years or older who have been diagnosed with cancer or sickle cell disease may do so by visiting https://aflacchildhoodcancer.org. All My Special Aflac Ducks are provided and delivered free of charge.
ABOUT AFLAC INCORPORATED
Aflac Incorporated (NYSE: AFL) is a Fortune 500 company helping provide protection to more than 50 million people through its subsidiaries in Japan and the U.S., paying cash fast when policyholders get sick or injured. For more than six decades, insurance policies of Aflac Incorporated's subsidiaries have given policyholders the opportunity to focus on recovery, not financial stress. In the U.S., Aflac is the number one provider of supplemental health insurance products1. Aflac Life Insurance Japan is the leading provider of medical and cancer insurance in Japan, where it insures 1 in 4 households. In 2021, Aflac Incorporated was proud to be included as one of the World's Most Ethical Companies by Ethisphere for the 16th consecutive year. Also in 2021, the company was included in the Dow Jones Sustainability North America Index and became a signatory of the Principles for Responsible Investment (PRI). In 2022, Aflac Incorporated was included on Fortune's list of World's Most Admired Companies for the 21st time and Bloomberg's Gender-Equality Index for the third consecutive year. To find out how to get help with expenses health insurance doesn't cover, get to know us at aflac.com or aflac.com/español. Investors may learn more about Aflac Incorporated and its commitment to ESG and social responsibility at investors.aflac.com under "Sustainability."
1 LIMRA 2021 U.S. Supplemental Health Insurance Total Market Report
ABOUT SUNRISE
The Sunrise Association brings the magic of childhood to children with cancer and their siblings at 11 Summer Day Camps around the world, Year-Round Programs, and In-Hospital Recreational Activities, all offered free of charge. Sunrise Day Camps are located in New York (3 locations), Baltimore, Metro DC, Atlanta, Israel (3 locations), Greater Philadelphia, and online (Sunrise VX Virtual eXperience).
Media contact: Jon Sullivan, 706-763-4813 or jsullivan@aflac.com
Analyst and investor contact: David A. Young, 706-596-3264, 800-235-2667 or dyoung@aflac.com
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SOURCE Aflac
