CAMP HILL, Pa. — Rite Aid Corp. will provide free, full-body skin cancer screenings as the presenting sponsor of The Skin Cancer Foundation’s annual Road to Healthy Skin Tour.
The drug chain said Monday that the tour, now in its sixth year and coinciding with Skin Cancer Awareness Month, brings local dermatologists out into the community to perform potentially life-saving skin cancer checks.
Starting on May 14 and running through August, a custom 38-foot recreational vehicle will travel to more than 50 Rite Aid stores across the country and enlist volunteer dermatologists to provide the free full-body screenings from the RV’s two private exam rooms.
The tour will visit Rite Aid stores in New Jersey, New York and Pennsylvania in May; in Pennsylvania, New York, Ohio, Kentucky, Tennessee and North Carolina in June; in North Carolina, Georgia, Alabama and Tennessee in July; and in Colorado and California in August. An interactive map of the tour is available at SkinCancer.org/Tour and enables consumers to view the tour stops by date and by state.
"Rite Aid is proud to have sponsored the Road to Healthy Skin Tour every year since its inaugural journey," Robert Thompson, executive vice president of pharmacy at Rite Aid, said in a statement. "By bringing free screenings like these into the communities we serve, Rite Aid is affirming its commitment to supporting customers’ long-term health goals and continuing its transformation into a network of neighborhood health and wellness destinations."
The skin screenings, which take about 10 minutes, will be offered on a first-come, first-served basis. Visitors will also receive educational materials explaining how to perform monthly skin checks at home and how to protect the skin against sun on a daily basis, along with sunscreen samples and other giveaways.
Rite Aid said that since 2008, the Road to Healthy Skin Tour has traveled more than 100,000 across the United States and has detected about 7,000 suspected cancers and precancers, including nearly 300 cases of melanoma.
"Skin cancers found and removed early are almost always curable. That’s why The Skin Cancer Foundation recommends that everyone visit a dermatologist annually for a professional skin exam in addition to practicing monthly self-exams," stated Perry Robins, president of The Skin Cancer Foundation. "Rite Aid was a founding partner of the Road to Healthy Skin Tour, and we appreciate their continued support of the program."
