Hyundai Motor America and its dealers have announced the launch of the 2010 Hyundai Hope on Wheels tour, which will provide a total of $2.1 million to more than forty children's hospitals across the country to support childhood cancer research.

The first of this year's grantee hospitals will be NewYork-Presbyterian/Morgan Stanley Children's Hospital, which will receive $125,000 to support the research of Dr. Jennifer Levine and Dr. Julia Glade Bender as part of the hospital's Hope & Heroes program. The second hospital to receive funding will be the Children's Hospital of Alabama, which will receive $40,000.

Launched in 1998, Hope on Wheels has awarded more than $14 million to support childhood cancer research efforts nationwide. Every time a new Hyundai vehicle is sold in the United States, $5 is donated to the program.

"At Hyundai, we believe in doing what others might think is impossible," said Hyundai Motor America president and CEO John Krafcik. "With the dramatic increase in survival rates that we've seen over the past several decades, we believe that a cure for pediatric cancer is now within reach. Hyundai is focusing the bulk of our philanthropic efforts on funding childhood cancer research through Hope on Wheels so that one day no child will ever have to face cancer."