Fox Chapel Crew will give a check for $13,400 to Gilda's Club of Western Pennsylvania, which provides support to local families hit by cancer. The award will be made at 6:30 p.m. on Saturday, June 7, at the Pittsburgh Field Club, 121 Field Club Road in Fox Chapel.

The high-school rowing team raised the money during its second annual rowing-and-running biathlon at Fox Chapel Area High School on March 15. More than 200 rowers participated in the event in various competitive and recreational classes. The check presentation will take place at the Crew’s award banquet.

“The Fox Chapel Crew is presenting this donation to Gilda’s Club at our award banquet to demonstrate our success, both on the water and in the community,” said Dr, Mark Bellinger, Head Coach and President of Fox Chapel Crew.

Team members and their families started the biathlon in 2007 to show solidarity with one of their coaches, Jesse Foglia (FOH-lee-uh), and fellow rower Alex Sparta, now a senior. Both Foglia and Sparta battled cancer and are now in remission. Many students on the team also have had parents who have fought cancer. Unlike many fundraising groups, Fox Chapel Crew holds back nothing for its own organization -- all proceeds go directly to Gilda's Club, 2816 Smallman Street in the Strip District.

Funds were raised through race entry fees, but mostly through individual and corporate sponsorships. Top sponsors included Alcoa Foundation, Marcus & Shapira LLP; Picadio, Sneath, Miller & Norton, P.C.; Strassburger, McKenna, Gutnick & Potter; the Baum Consulting Group; UBS Financial Services; and Zambrano Corporation.

The Fox Chapel rowing team, with 62 members, has competed at the national level for the last five years in a row. Last month, the Fox Chapel Crew Women's Lightweight 8+ captured a fourth-place finish at the Scholastic Rowing Association of America National Championship against a field of 15 of the country's elite high school crews. They compete again next week (June 13) at the US Rowing Youth National Championships in Cincinnati, Ohio.

Gilda's Club provides a meeting place where men, women and children living with cancer, along with their families and friends, join with others to build social and emotional support as a supplement to medical care.

Free-of-charge and non profit, Gilda's Club offers support and networking groups, lectures, workshops and social events in a non-residential, homelike setting. Visit the web site at:

http://www.gildasclubwesternpa.org/