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# Three Santa Monica residents to advocate for cancer funding in Washington
- URL: https://www.smdp.com/090706-story/
- Published: 2006-09-07T15:00:00.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-23T21:22:49.000Z
- Author: Guest Author
- Tags: Health, Santa Monica, #archive-import

*By Daily Press staff*

The American Cancer Society named Santa Monica residents Ann Cochran, Vienna Hayes and Jenifer Metz to represent Santa Monica at Celebration on the Hill 2006, a nationwide advocacy event in Washington, D.C.

The trio on Sept. 19-20 will join 10,000 other ambassadors, cancer survivors and volunteers from every congressional district to encourage members of Congress to restore and increase federal funding for lifesaving cancer research and programs. Nearly 200 ambassadors will attend from Los Angeles County.

In 2006, nearly 1.4 million Americans, including 136,875 Californians, will be diagnosed with cancer. Of the estimated 564,830 cancer deaths in 2006 in the United States, 54,300 of them will occur in California. Surveys show that cancer is the No. 1 health concern of Americans.

During Celebration on the Hill, ambassadors will meet with lawmakers to demand that Congress make cancer a national priority by increasing federal funding for the National Institutes of Health, the National Cancer Institute and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

In addition, they will ask Congress to reauthorize and expand the CDC’s National Breast and Cervical Cancer Early Detection Program to make it easier for states to reach eligible women who are most in need.

Participants also will converge upon the National Mall around a temporary Relay For Life Wall of Hope memorial constructed of 5,000 banners from each Relay For Life community in the United States to meet other ambassadors and share stories about how their lives have been touched by cancer.

Celebration on the Hill is a project of the American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network (ACS CAN). ACS CAN is the society’s sister organization, a nonprofit, non-partisan advocacy organization dedicated to eliminating cancer as a major public health problem through voter education and issue campaigns aimed at influencing candidates and lawmakers to support laws and policies that will help people fight cancer.

Additional information can be found at www.CelebrationOnTheHill.org.

*Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on September 7, 2006.* [Read the original PDF.](https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/smdp%5Fbackissues/090706.pdf?ref=smdp.com)