I am pleased to pass along news from the Foundation Beyond Belief (FBB) and the Stiefel Freethought Foundation that their “Light The Night Walk Team raised $430,000 for The Leukemia and Lymphoma Society last year, the largest amount ever raised by a first year non-corporate team and the 4th largest amount raised by any team in the nation in 2012, including corporate teams.”

This was made possible by a widespread effort consisting of “150 local teams, more than any other organization, made up of thousands of humanists all over the United States and Canada, and by a pledge from the Stiefel family to match the total raised by the FBB teams.”

This was the first such effort by FBB. They hope to do even better next year and you can get more information on this from Ed Brayton, who in addition to being the person who runs FreethoughtBlogs behind the scenes and hosts the Dispatches from the Culture Wars blog, is also the Media Relations Coordinator for FBB and can be reached at 616-244-3157 or by email at press@foundationbeyondbelief.org.

There was a jarring note prior to this. Apparently FBB and the Stiefel Foundation initially approached the American Cancer Society as the beneficiary of their fund-raising effort but after initially being open, the ACS stopped talking to them and finally rejected the offer. Greta Christina says that there are strong indications that the ACS did not want to be associated with the FBB, though they deny it. As Greta says, this would not be the first time that atheist money has been turned down as being tainted and has a series of blog posts on this issue (see here, here, here, and here).

To end on a much more positive note, Greta was this year’s Honored Hero for the Foundation Beyond Belief’s participation in the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society’s Light the Night Walk. (Last year’s winner was the late Christopher Hitchens.)