For the past three years, Family Video stores across the country, as well as locally, have asked customers to round up their transactions to the nearest dollar and donate the funds to the Round It Up for Lymphoma fundraiser.

On Friday, local Family Video stores found in Bradford, Olean, N.Y., and Wellsville, N.Y., will once again participate in the fundraiser while hosting Chinese auctions and giveaways to raise additional funds for the benefit. The fundraiser will continue through March 30.    

Joe Hatcher, district manager for Family Video Movie Club, said the event has raised $1.1 million toward general lymphoma research at the Lymphoma Research Foundation. In addition, the funds will be used for the continued support of a tissue bank at the University of Chicago Medicine, which was launched with the help of last year’s campaign. 

“The first two years, we raised $2.1 million, so we’re raising about $1 million a year,” Hatcher said. “Not only are people giving their change (from transactions), but we also hold this for just two weeks.

“It’s a very small time period, but we raise a lot of money,” he added.

Hatcher said customers at the local stores, as well as the surrounding businesses, have been very generous with the fundraiser.

“What’s nice in Olean and Bradford is that we’ve gotten a lot of the local businesses involved, too,” he said. “I know at the Olean store, alone, we’ve had about 20 businesses donate goods and cash toward the fund.” He said the donated goods will be used for the auction and giveaways to raise additional funds. 

Stephanie Falandys, store manager at Family Video in Olean, said the store did really well last year and was in the top 10 percent of company stores that raised the most funds.

“Our customers are really helpful with this promotion. It’s really exciting,” Falandys said. 

Keith Hoogland, president of Family Video, said the company started the fundraiser because the disease has touched the lives of many of its employees and their loved ones.

“With continued support of this tissue bank, we will be able to better understand why lymphoma develops and study how different environmental factors impact prognosis and treatment,” Hoogland said. “Ultimately, the tissue bank will help us make significant progress toward finding a cure.”  

Lymphoma is described as the most common type of blood cancer in adults and the third-most common in children. More than 500,000 Americans are living with the disease in some form, and 200 are diagnosed with the illness each day.

Company officials said participation in the fundraiser also can be done online at www.familyvideo.com.