Saratoga Food Group founded the International Spirit of Life Foundation in order to promote, enhance, support and reward groups and individuals who have made outstanding contributions to special areas and segments of care and care giving in the fight for better cures and management of cancer.

The primary mission of the Foundation is to seek, identify and award recipients who have fostered, increased awareness, expanded or created and worked successfully with outstanding commitment to the care and treatment of children and adults with cancer. The significance of the awards is to recognize and further the efforts in finding better cures and better management of cancer.

The award is a 25 inch tall, 40 pound solid bronze replica of the Spirit of Life statue that was erected in 1914 and dedicated in 1915, in Congress Park, Saratoga Springs, New York. The statue in Congress Park was sculpted by Daniel Chester French (1850-1931), one of America's pre-eminent sculptors who also sculpted the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, DC and the Minute Man at Concord in Massachusetts. For further information contact Mr. Barry Locke, Executive Director of the Foundation at 301-585-4870.

The Foundation is in partnership with the Washington Cancer Institute at Washington Hospital Center, and has established a program with the "International Spirit of Life" Foundation through the Cancer Institute to identify, support, reward and recognize individuals in the search for cancer cures and patients fighting the disease. For more information about cancer research check out the Washington Center's Web Site at www.whcenter.org